


For A Moment, I Was Lost

by wtflommy



Series: String Theory [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Cover Art, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fanart, Gen, M/M, Older Arya, POV Arya Stark, POV Sandor Clegane, Red String of Fate, Resolved Romantic Tension, Resolved Sexual Tension, Retelling, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Tension, What-If, season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-02-09 18:48:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 64,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12894468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtflommy/pseuds/wtflommy
Summary: --“Perhaps we’ll meet again, when we’re better for each other.”--What if Arya had stumbled upon the Brotherhood while in the Riverlands?Reunited, Sandor and Arya fumble over both past and future with whispers of a certain priest's tall tale of red strings and a one-eyed lord's notions of destiny in their ear.





	1. Arya I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya comes back to Westeros to begin marking names off her list.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was thinking about what would have happened had Arya ran into Sandor in the Riverlands (like a sane person does) and when I didn't have time to create the beginnings of a story, [I created a gif story](https://wolfandhound-got.tumblr.com/post/167893121135/what-would-have-happened-if-arya-had-run-into) \- well, now there are words to go with it. Enjoy.

  


 

* * *

 

By the time the last Frey man had fallen to the floor clutching his throat, Arya Stark had come to find her need for vengeance like her need for air. It was wholly necessary and yet happened without thought.

It wasn’t that she enjoyed killing. No, she could have a kind heart. Before she left Winterfell, she had been a sweet girl—troublesome, sure, but none-the-less sweet. It wasn’t unusual for her to have befriended stable boys and kitchen girls all the same, playing in dingy corners with them like they were her equal. Because without the name she had happened to be born to, she was their equal. 

But with a name, she had become what she was today. Broken and distrustful, she’d learned that those with names tended to cause the most pain. Lannister, Baratheon, Bolton, Tyrell, Martell, Greyjoy, Targaryen. Even Stark.

Looking back, she laughed to herself at all the silly things that made her cry as a child. Old Nan had been right when she used to tell them that summer children knew nothing of fear. But Winter had been slowly approaching and with it came new horrors. She hadn’t wanted to go south to King’s Landing, but never would she have thought it would set into motion the events that led to her walking through the maze of dead men on the floor of the hall at The Twins. 

But it _wasn’t_ the killing she enjoyed. It was the _vengeance_ for those who’d hurt her, who had wronged her and her family in so many horrible ways. That gave her joy. The pleasure she felt as she had sliced up Lothar and Black Walder was for her brother, his wife and their unborn child. The ecstasy she experienced when she cut Walder Frey’s throat had been for her mother. And poisoning every last son of a bitch who helped had been for her, because if it wasn’t for all of them, she would have stayed in The Twins and would have been reunited with her mother and brother, and maybe, just maybe, would have gone home to Winterfell.

Then she wouldn’t have had to endure the struggles she and the Hound had gone through as they crossed the Riverlands towards the Vale. He could have taken his silver and been on his way, or maybe even pledged his sword to Robb’s cause. She wouldn’t have gotten Needle back from Polliver, but the Hound also wouldn’t have been bitten as men tried to claim his bounty for killing the Lannister soldiers. She wouldn’t have learned the proper way to kill a man, after having stabbed several in the neck. Hell, she wouldn’t have had a reason to learn how to kill a man. 

She wouldn’t have slowly come to appreciate the scarred man who barked angrily at her while she snarled back at him like a cornered wild animal. No chance for angry words to turn into jokes and laughs beside a fire as they fell asleep. The Hound wouldn’t have needed to protect her from men who wanted what was between her legs, all the while keeping her safe and warm on those cold nights when the winds would blow and the rains would fall. There would have been no farmer and his daughter that kindly gave them shelter before a particularly bad storm, only for the Hound to knock the man down and steal his silver the next morning.

_‘Dead men don’t need silver.’_

And she wouldn’t have had to abandon him in the Vale, stealing the silver he’d taken from the farmer after he’d fought for her safety and given his life for her’s. The guilt she felt every day for letting him die like that would have never plagued her thoughts, her dreams. It would have never gotten to the point where she’d yelled out his name in her sleep on more than one occasion while at the House of Black and White, causing constant questioning about him, which she always failed to lie about. She wouldn’t have ever even gone to Braavos. 

The tricks and poisons she’d learned during her time there wouldn’t have happened. Meryn Trant’s blood wouldn’t have ever ran down her hands. She never would have lost her eyesight as punishment, learning a now valuable skill that she’d used on more than one occasion to sneak around in the dark. A skill she’d used to kill that bitch Jaqen had sent after her.

As she stepped over the last body and walked through the large double doors, past gaping women who didn’t know what to do, she began to feel at ease. The sheer number of men that were killed brought her some modicum of peace. 

Until she thought about her father. Her job was not done yet, there were still deaths to avenge. Next on her list was Cersei, and conveniently the Mountain would be with her in King’s Landing. 

Arya made her way across the yard, shedding Walder Frey’s smelly, oversized coat which she’d donned over her tunic and mail. The crisp air bit at her exposed neck as she ducked into the stables. Pausing at the closet where she’d hidden her pack and sword, she grabbed a few items: a tattered green cloak with leather shoulders to protect from wind and rain, a pair of leather gloves, a bedroll and of course a saddle, bridle and other necessary bits for her travel south. 

The idea of a horse was a luxury to her. She’d taken a ship from Braavos to a small port along the coast of The Bite and when she couldn’t find a horse to purchase, she had made her way to the Twins on foot. 

She dropped her things in front of the stall of a white dapple mare with a blonde tail who seemed in good shape for the long ride. After feeding it a handful of oats to gain its trust, she began tacking the horse as quickly as she could. No one had come to bother her since she’d walked from the hall, but that didn’t guarantee her safe passage through the gates if she wasn’t swift.

The yard was quiet when she’d finally tacked the horse. She looked around, remembering the last time she had been here, with the Hound, when it had taken him _knocking her out_ for her to quit running to her death. It had taken her years to appreciate what he’d done for her in that moment, and what he had continued to do for her until his unnecessary death. Arya had still been mad at him over Mycah at that point, but after months of traveling together, he had taught her the world was not black and white. She could be upset over her friend’s death at his hands while also appreciating the sacrifices he had began to make for her. 

Sure, she was but a meal ticket at first; a presumed easy way to make a nice bag of coin. However, even as they had made their way towards the Vale, their time together had started to wear on her and she began appreciating his company more. It didn’t change the fact that she still hated him at times, when he was particularly mean: hitting her to prove a point as she water-danced, stealing that farmer’s money. But by the time she carefully picked her way through that gorge to the echoes of his pleas, she had grown fond of him in some weird way. 

Her breath clouded in front of her as she let out a heavy sigh. None of that mattered, she thought as she climbed on the horse to make her way from the Twins. 

 

* * *

 

_He rode through the streets of the city,  
__Down from his hill on high._  

Arya had been riding for a week, following the western edge of the Green Fork. To the west, half a day’s ride, was Hag’s Mire, which sat north of Oldstones. Since she’d left the Twins, she hadn’t seen nor heard another person. As she followed the wooded path cautiously, she began smelling a campfire and knew she was getting closer to whoever was singing.

_O'er the wynds and the steps and the cobbles,_  
_He rode to a woman's sigh._  
_For she was his secret treasure,  
_ _She was his shame and his bliss._

She crested the hill and saw the camp next to the stream. From what she could tell there were at least five men, wearing armor; though in the dim light she couldn’t tell whose colors they were. Arya slowed her mare down as she crossed the small foot bridge over the stream, getting closer to the men.

_And a chain and a keep are nothing,  
_ _Compared to a woman's kiss._

Lannister soldiers. What were Lannister men doing this far north? She gripped the reins tighter.  

_For hands of gold are always cold,_  
_But a woman's hands are warm!_  
_For hands of gold are always cold,  
__But a woman's hands are…_  

As Arya passed them, they stopped singing and turned towards her. Pulling her mare to a stop, she made a final count. Seven. Young men, green boys from the looks of it. She bit her lip, contemplating her next move.

“That’s a pretty song. I’ve never heard it before,” she called out. It wouldn’t be too difficult to kill them all.

“It’s a new one,” one of the soldiers, the one who had been singing, answered. 

Another one of the young men stood. “Are you hungry? We’ve got some rabbit.”

She hadn’t expected that. Frowning she looked around as though it was all a game. Seeing no one else, she turned back to them. 

“I don’t want to steal your food.”

“You’re not stealing it, we’re offerin’,” a dark haired soldier called over with a smile. “Come on, it’s going to be a cold night.” 

Perhaps _they_ wanted a ‘woman’s warm hands’ tonight. She could give them what they wanted, though maybe not exactly as they would expect. Dismounting, she slowly made her way to a nearby tree to tie up her horse. Approaching cautiously, she scanned the camp to get a better sense of their defenses. 

The dark haired one stood, turning towards her and she instantly grabbed the hilt of Needle. But he was only moving to give her a better seat.

“You heading south?” 

“King’s Landing,” she replied. No sense lying just yet.

“Poor girl,” another commented as a few of them chuckled. 

“Not so bad, is it?” she asked as she sat next to the one who had been singing. 

They kept talking and she pretended to listen as she surveyed the camp. Their swords were nearby, but not so close that she couldn’t get to a few of the soldiers first. 

“The people who live there, they’d skin you alive if they could make two coppers off your hide.”

“Worst place in the world.”

“What are you doing in the Riverlands?” she asked. 

“There’s been some trouble with the Frey’s up at the Twins, so we’re part of the army that’s been sent to keep the peace,” the dark haired one replied. 

Arya kept her face blank as she listened, but she was disappointed that word had traveled so quickly. These soldiers must have been stationed near the Crossroads if they were already this far north. 

Before she could think further, they offered her food and drink. While she politely turned it down at first, she realized just how thankful she was for the rabbit. 

“I just think about my dad out there on his boat, all alone,” one of the men said. “I ought to be out there with ‘im.”

_Father._

“My wife just had our first baby.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Oh who knows. You think soldiers get ravens with news from home,” he laughed. “I hope it’s a girl.”

“Why?” Arya asked incredulously.

“Girls take care of their papas when their papas grow old. Boys just run off to fight in someone else’s wars.”

She wanted to cry, if she could have remembered how. All she wanted in that moment was a hug or a kind word from her dear father. But it would never come. She needed to get to Cersei.

“So why’s a nice girl on her own, heading to King’s Landing?”

Arya thought for a moment, glancing over at their swords again. They were too kind; if it came to it she could surely kill them all. She didn’t want to, after they’d shared food and drink with her, but if it came to it she wouldn’t hesitate.

“I’m going to kill the queen.”

The soldiers all made faces as they looked around at each other. Arya tensed, ready to grab her sword. Then the dark haired one laughed and the other’s followed suit. 

Letting out a sigh of relief, Arya joined in their laughter so as to not draw further suspicion.  

She slept at their camp that night, where they insisted she sleep closest to the fire. She was gone before they’d even woken. Perhaps not all associated with certain names had to be evil.

 

* * *

 

Her intentions had been to head south to King’s Landing. That had been the plan, and she was only 200 miles from her destination when everything was turned upside down. 

Running into Hot Pie had been a nice surprise, but more than anything, the news that her brother was not only alive, but King in the North and home at Winterfell was more than she could take. Hope and happiness were not something she had been used to over the last few years, but reuniting with her own blood was too strong a pull.  

Cersei would still be there. She needed to get to Jon, to go home.

 

* * *

It was mid-afternoon but the sun was hidden behind a shroud of grey clouds. The King’s Road had been pretty quiet, and everyone she did see was heading south, away from the chilling winds blowing from the north. In the week since she’d left the Lannister men, she hadn’t seen many people—a few lowborn people who eyed her cautiously as she rode by, but that was it.

So it was surprising to her when she began smelling camp fires, then heard men singing and laughing. She slowed her mare down, squinting through the woods, trying to find the camp. From the opposite side of the trail, several yards ahead, she heard rustling in the brush and watched as a large man stomped out of the bracken with an armful of chopped wood. He seemed to ignore her at this distance, perhaps thinking she was one of his traveling companions. Arya couldn’t help but think how _particularly_ large he was, in an almost familiar way. He walked with a slight limp in his right leg but his face was mostly obscured by the pile of wood in his arms. 

Arya’s heart started pounding in her ears—she had to be imagining it. Being in the Riverlands was just dredging up old memories and that’s why she was picturing a particular scarred face. Clicking her teeth, she maneuvered her horse forward, needing to see the man up close to confirm she was simply seeing things. 

She watched as the man stumbled on a root jutting up on the trail and dropped several of the logs.

“Rat cunt!” came the gruff swear and she felt her cheeks flush and her head get light. Her horse was still moving towards him.

The man looked up from picking up the pile of wood, hearing someone approach.  

“You going to fucking help or you just gonna stare—”

Arya pulled her horse to a halt. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t _possibly_ be. He was dead, left on the side of a rocky hill in the Vale, calling for her to end his misery. 

But standing in front of her, alive as any one man could be, was Sandor Clegane. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover art based on my original drawing [which can be found here](https://wtflommy.deviantart.com/).  
> \--


	2. Sandor I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere in Westeros, Sandor Clegane recovers and tries to find purpose.

 

 

* * *

 

All he felt was white, hot, searing pain. Everything was on fire. His fucking leg, of course, but also his shoulder where that cunt had bit him. He cursed himself for realizing the girl had been right and he should have let her burn off the horrible bits. Then he would have been the one punching Brienne of _fucking_ Tarth over a cliff’s edge as they tried to take her from him.

_Her_. 

When he closed his eyes, he saw those cold grey eyes staring back at him, even as he taunted her in an effort to get her to give him mercy. But the bitch had taken his money and walked away, just like he taught her. She had been too good of a student.

He tried to focus on good things but he had so few to look back on. Deliriously, he thought he heard her laughter echoing in the hills like it had when they arrived at the Bloody Gate, a mere ten miles away. Though he knew it was all in his pain-riddled head, he savored the sound and found himself sobbing quietly on more than one occasion as he laid there in agony. 

That girl had been a meal ticket to him at the beginning, but as they traveled he had found himself seeing her as a mirror, reflecting his worst traits right back at him. They had began to get on in a more companionable manner and while she was just a child, he had been looking forward to crossing the Narrow Sea with her to see what Essos would offer them.

Sandor wasn’t sure how long he laid there. He spent more than half of it lost in a nightmarish dream world that wasn’t any better than the _fucking_ pain he felt when he was awake. It was long enough though that he regretted not taking the water she had offered. He was so weak that he couldn’t even manage to swat the flies that had began crawling over his skin. 

As his eyes fluttered shut, he was positive it was for the last time. This was his end. A deserving end: suffering on par with the suffering he’d caused so many during his miserable life. 

His final thought was whether Arya Stark was safe.

 

* * *

Somewhere in the distance there was an almost constant _thwack! thwack! thwack!_

And it was really pissing him off. Was this hell? Just annoyance for the rest of his existence? No, he could feel the cool air on his skin and the dull throbbing in his leg. His head swam from milk of the poppy. He grumbled and tried to sit up, before he felt light headed and fell back to the hard cot with a groan. Sandor blinked his eyes blearily, trying to get his bearings. This wasn’t the hillside. This was a tent. Why the fuck was he in a tent?

The noise continued and he sighed, trying to ignore it. 

“See you’ve decided to join us,” he heard a man say, his tone warm. 

“The fuck am I?” Sandor groaned, looking over to see a short, older man with dark hair smiling at him near the entrance of the tent. He wore a seven pointed star around his neck.

“In my little village. Though, not to brag, you’re looking much more alive than you did a week ago,” he chuckled and moved closer, making to grab a pitcher of water on the small crate next to the cot. 

“We don’t have a maester out here, so I’m not sure how well that leg’ll work for you, but I wager the more important thing is that you’re breathing instead of rotting in the dirt.” 

_Was breathing better?_

The man knelt near the cot and held out a cup of water. Slowly Sandor sat up, wincing as he reached out to take the cup. Looking himself over, he noticed he no longer had his tattered armor on—what he’d lived in for months as he’d traveled with Arya. 

“The girl?”

The man made a face, shaking his head. “No girl that we saw.”

Sandor frowned. She was gone. 

 

* * *

Months had passed since he’d been saved by Brother Ray. Sandor hadn’t been counting moons, but figured it had to have been at least a year. After a few months, once his leg was good enough that he could walk without the aide of poorly made crutches, he made himself useful chopping and carrying wood for the small sept they were building. 

He kept to himself, working hard to repay his debt and to keep his mind from drifting off into uneasy thoughts. At night when he’d close his eyes, he still saw those cold grey eyes glaring back at him, merciless and void of emotion. During the day, when he’d hear one of the children laugh, he’d feel a twinge in his chest as he thought about the Bloody Gate. 

“I think some of the men are a bit afraid of you,” Ray said, handing him a cup of water during lunch one day.

“I’m used to it.”

“When I found you, I thought you’d been dead for days,” Ray continued, sitting down on the rocks next to him. “Well, you was stinkin’ already, and you had bugs all over ya. And bone was coming through, right there.”

Ray poked at Sandor’s thigh, where it still ached. Glaring, he pulled his leg away from the septon. Ray just laughed at him. 

“I was gonna give you a proper burial, and then you coughed! Oh! Nearly shit me’self. I reckoned you were gonna die by the time I loaded you on the wagon, but you didn’t. And I reckoned you’d die a dozen more times over the next few days, but you didn’t. What kept you going?”

Sandor paused his eating as those grey eyes haunted him again. The cold, unforgiving ones that had left him to rot on a hillside after everything he had done for her. After he’d been beaten and stabbed and bitten for her. The wolf-bitch. 

“Hate.”

Ray shook his head as he watched Sandor go back to eating. 

“No, there’s a reason you’re still here.”

“Aye, there’s a reason. I’m a big fucker and I’m tough to kill.” _Unfortunately._

“No, a _reason_. Gods aren’t done with you yet,” he smiled as he stood, surveying the valley they had made a home in. 

Sandor shook his head. “I’ve heard that before. Man was talkin’ ‘bout a different god though.”

“Well, maybe he was right. I don’t know much about the gods,” Ray shrugged, turning back to him.

“You’re in the wrong line of work,” he scoffed, shoveling more stew and bread into his mouth. 

“Oh, there’s plenty of pious sons of bitches who think they know the word of god, or gods. I don’t. I don’t even know their real names. Maybe it is the Seven. Maybe it’s the Old Gods. Or maybe it’s the Lord of Light. Or maybe they’re all the same  _fucking_ thing. I don’t know. What matters, I believe, is that there’s something greater than us. And whatever it is, it’s got plans for Sandor Clegane,” Brother Ray had nodded knowingly towards him. 

He looked up from his lunch with a frown. Plans, from the gods? Hardly. Maybe plans to kill innocent men, women and children for a cunt of a prince turned king. Like the butcher’s boy.

“You didn’t know me back in my time. You don’t know the things I’ve done.”

“I’ve heard stories…”

“If the Gods are real, why haven’t they punished me?”

“They have,” Ray said before leaving him to his lunch.

Sandor looked out over the valley with a frown, chewing on a piece of bread. Was his punishment the pain and suffering he’d endured over the last few months? Was it his brother shoving his face into the brazier? Perhaps it was years of servitude to the Lannisters. 

Whatever it was, it didn’t feel like it was enough. 

 

* * *

“It’s never too late to come back,” Ray said, turning from the congregation to look directly at him. 

How could he come back from the depths he’d fallen? What could he possibly do to atone for his crimes? 

In the distance he heard horses and looked up to see three riders heading towards them, throwing dust up as the rode. His hand instinctively went to where his sword belt should have been but he found nothing there.

“You have to answer your prayers yourself,” Ray finished, turning to the men as they approached. “Seven save you, friends. How can we help you?”

“What are you doing here?” the one in the yellow cloak asked gruffly. 

“Well, we’re talking about life!” Ray piped. “You?”

“Protecting the people.” 

“Well we thank you for your protection.” 

After finding the group had nothing to offer them, they began to turn.

“Stay safe. The night is dark, and full of terrors.”

Sandor scowled. The Brotherhood. What were they doing out here? Where, even, was out here? Were they still in the Vale, or had he been taken to the Riverlands? Since waking, he hadn’t traveled more than a mile away from the camp and truly had no idea where he was. But if the Brotherhood was here, they must be in the Riverlands somewhere. 

He’d argued with Ray later that day as he chopped wood. 

“Violence is a disease. You don’t cure a disease by spreading it to more people.”

“You don’t cure it by dying, either,” Sandor shot back as he turned to continue chopping wood. 

“You’ve done enough work for one day, come on up for some supper,” Ray turned to head back to the sept. 

He couldn’t believe Ray was just going to ignore the threat the Brotherhood posed for their little pacifist village.

“It’s going to be a cold night. We’ll need firewood.” 

“I’ll save you a bowl of stew. Might even have some ale hidden away,” Ray shot him a sly grin. 

For once, Sandor smiled genuinely. If this whole Brotherhood thing could be dealt with easily, perhaps life here wasn’t so bad. 

 

* * *

A few days had passed since the Brotherhood had threatened them and Sandor was beginning to relax and fall back into the new habits he’d formed. 

It was early in the day when he’d trekked into the woods to find good trees to trim into logs. He hacked at the small branches on a tree he’d cut down before taking a break for a drink of water. He still wished it were wine. 

He looked around the forest with a sigh. For the first time in his life, he was beginning to feel like Sandor Clegane, and not the Hound. His eyes closed as he took a deep breath, listening to the leaves rustle and the birds chirp. 

Then he heard a scream. 

By the time he’d gotten back to camp, the food had been raided and every person had been slaughtered. His leg ached from running through the hills, and he limped past the dead in disbelief. Who would do something like this to a bunch of innocent people? He knew the answer to his own question. 

His eye caught something swaying in the rafters of the sept and he walked towards it in fear. Hanging lifeless in front of him, was Brother Ray. 

Life was a cruel joke, giving power to those who didn’t deserve it while giving death and suffering to those who did. But things could not be black and white. He could not simply walk away, becoming a pacifist in an effort to make up for his life as the Hound, else he’d end up just like Ray. 

No, he had to avenge and protect those who couldn’t help themselves. 

 

* * *

There was blood splattered on his clothes and it dripped from the tip of the axe he’d grabbed back at the camp. Four men had been killed, but their leader, the one with the yellow cloak, was still missing. 

Sandor stomped through the woods, searching for him, when he heard men talking. Changing direction, he approached the group who were tying rope to a tree to hang three men. They turned towards him when they heard the crunch of sticks and leaves beneath his feet. The one with the yellow cloak was there and eyed him in surprise. 

“Clegane. The _fuck_ you doing here?” Thoros asked with a smirk. 

“Chasing them,” he pointed his axe. “You?”

“Hangin’ them.” 

“Any particular reason?”

“They’re our men,” Beric replied. “Well, they were. They attacked a nearby sept and murdered the villagers. Why do you want them?”

“Same reason. I was helping build it. They killed a friend of mine.”

“You’ve got friends?” Thoros asked slyly.

“Not anymore,” Sandor growled, gritting his teeth. “They’re mine.”

The men moved to block him. “It’s the Brotherhood’s good name they’ve dragged through the dirt,” Beric said, standing between him and the yellow cloaked man.

“Fuck your name!” Sandor spat as he came to stand in front of Beric, towering over him. “They’re mine. Killed you once Dondarrion, happy to do it again.”

Beric smirked. A long haired man drew an arrow on him from the side.

“Drop that arrow you bloody girl,” he warned, raising his axe in the archer’s direction. “Tougher girls than you have tried to kill me.” When the archer didn’t lower his bow, Sandor growled and turned to cut him down.

“You can have one of them,” Beric bargained. 

“Two,” Sandor haggled, turning back to him. 

Beric turned to Thoros, who smirked before nodding. They moved out of the way for Sandor to approach the men. He looked up at the yellow cloaked man and found himself eager to bury his axe in his chest. Perhaps his stomach, so he suffered more. He lifted the axe high over his head with a growl and watched as the man flinched. Fucking baby. 

“No, no no no,” Thoros said, grabbing the handle of the axe. “We’re not butchers. We hang them.”

“Hanging! It’s all over in an instant, where’s the punishment in that?” Sandor scoffed. 

“They die,” Thoros reasoned. 

“We all bloody die,” he grumbled. “Except this one here.” He looked back at Beric.

“I’ll only gut one of them.”

“No.”

“Chop off one hand?” 

“We gave you two of the three out of respect for your loss. That’s generous,” Beric said, coming to stand next to him. 

Sandor stared at the one-eyed man, nostrils flaring as he sighed. After a moment, he threw the axe on the ground. “Bunch of nancies. There was a time I’d kill all seven of you just to gut these three.”

“You’re getting old, Clegane,” Thoros chirped. 

“He’s not.”

 

* * *

“You’re a fighter. You were _born_ a fighter,” Beric went on. “You walked away from the fight. How’d that go?”

Sandor glared at him. It hadn’t gone great, but for awhile he had found some measure of contentment and normalcy as he’d traveled these very lands with the Stark girl. But that didn’t matter anymore, she was surely dead. 

“Good and bad. Young and old. The things we’re fighting will destroy them all alike. You can still help a lot more than you’ve harmed, Clegane. It’s not too late for you.”

Sandor’s eyes went wide as he remembered the same words from Ray. Perhaps there was something to this divine bullshit after all. He looked down at the dwindling fire, frowning. 

“You can start by chopping some wood with that axe of yours, since you helped yourself to our food,” Thoros grinned. 

 

* * *

His hair stuck to his sweat-damped forehead as he methodically chopped the wood a bit further down the path from the camp. It was a bigger camp than he’d originally thought, easily twenty men. He’d already hauled one load of wood back and was slowly stacking more in his arms. 

The wood piled high in front of him, making it hard to see where he was walking. Down the road he caught a glimpse of a rider approaching but gave it little thought. He limped forward along the path before a root caught his foot and he stumbled, dropping the bundle of wood he carried.

“Rat cunt!” he swore. 

With an annoyed grunt, he knelt to pile it back up. The man on the horse was still approaching and he figured it must be one of the Brotherhood. 

“You going to fucking help or you just gonna stare—” 

The words were cut from his throat as he looked up to see not a man, but a dark-haired young woman staring wide eyed at him. He dropped the bundle of wood again, wincing as a log fell on his foot. His mouth opened, then closed again in disbelief. It couldn’t possibly be. 

“Wolf girl?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover art based on my original drawing [which can be found here](https://wtflommy.deviantart.com/).  
> 


	3. Arya II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya reunites with more of her past than she anticipated.

   

 

* * *

 

She had left this ghost behind long ago. This towering, broad shouldered, scarred ghost of a man who’d protected her and then stupidly given his life for her. It haunted her dreams but she had done her best to lay it to rest, to move on with her life.

But here he stood, in front of her as though it were just another day. Arya blinked, unsure of what to do.

“Wolf girl?” she heard the familiar voice call out, gruff but warm. 

“Didn’t think you’d last more than a day without me,” he continued, not moving from his place in the middle of the path. 

Slowly she dismounted her horse and walked closer, still sure she was seeing a ghost. While his beard was a bit thicker and his hair not quite as soiled as when they’d traveled together, he didn’t look much different. She had noticed his limp as she had approached and if she closed her eyes should could see the bone still sticking out from it. 

“Is that really you?” she finally managed to get out as she came to stand a few feet in front of him. 

“Aye, sadly,” he said with a small grin. 

Her grey eyes appraised him, still not believing it true. He hadn’t died—he had survived by some fortune and here he stood, in her path as though they were meant to reunite. The man in front of her had a different air to him; perhaps it was just the lack of armor that made him seem more approachable. No, there was something in his eyes that was different than when they’d traveled these lands together.

“Are you with that camp over there?”

Sandor nodded, chewing on his lip as he watched her. “The Brotherhood.”

That surprised her. Last she knew, they wanted him dead. Last she knew, _she_ wanted him dead. Yet as she had told the waif back in Braavos, she had been confused, and now that she saw him standing in front of her, alive and well, she felt a wave of relief that he hadn’t died. 

Arya dropped the reins to her horse and flung herself at him, wrapping her small arms around him. She couldn’t explain the overwhelming need to confirm he was truly there and how happy she was when she collided with his strong, solid body. He froze for a moment in surprise before awkwardly wrapping his arms around her shoulders with a grunt. 

“I thought you were dead. I… I don’t understand,” she murmured into his chest. He smelled like campfire and dirt and dried blood and it was the most comforting thing she’d ever smelled. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes. Why was this affecting her so much? 

She could feel the rumble in his chest as he laughed sardonically. “Guess the gods didn’t want me dead just yet.” 

Arya pulled away, looking up at him. She fought the urge to touch his face, just to confirm again that he was truly there. He looked healthy; he’d put on a little bit of weight so he must have been getting regular meals again and his brown eyes were warm, holding a twinkle that she found difficult to look away from. His broad shoulders still sagged forward in a humble hunch, but through his bloodied tunic she could tell he was stronger than before. 

“Are you hungry?” he asked, nodding towards the camp. “I’m sure they can spare a bit of food for a tiny whelp like yourself, if yer not in a hurry.”

A small smile pulled at the corner of her lips, before it turned to a frown. Sneering, she pulled back and lobbed a punch at his arm.

“Ah! The fuck was that for?! I just offered you free grub!” Sandor rubbed his forearm.

“Why the hell did you fight her! You stupid idiot, you didn’t have to fight her! We could have just left, or listened to her and—fuck! I don’t know, you didn’t have to egg her on and get yourself killed!”

Sandor chuckled. “Well I didn’t die, so—ow!”

She punched him again, harder this time. Tears stung at the corner of her eyes. “You’re an idiot!”

“‘least I didn’t leave you to suffer alone in a gorge as you bled out!”

“You wouldn’t have been in the gorge if you wouldn’t have been stupid and fought her in the first place!”

“That’s not the point!” he growled, leaning down towards her. “You couldn’t give me the kindness of death, you merciless bitch!”

Arya stepped back as though he had smacked her, blinking in surprise. 

“I… I couldn’t,” she mumbled as she looked down at the scattered wood at their feet. “I didn’t want you to die.” 

“Well, you got your fucking wish, you little wolf-bitch,” he snapped. 

Arya sniffed, looking up at him. She bit her lip. This was not what she was expecting to run into as she made her way through the Riverlands. Hell, she hadn’t expected this at all _, ever_. As far as she was concerned, the Hound was dead—and yet here he stood. No, this wasn’t the Hound.

“Sandor…” 

It was the first time she had ever said his name out loud, other than to Jaqen that one time they played the game of faces. It felt funny as it rolled off her tongue and she frowned as he looked at her, the deep scowl on his scarred face softening at the mention of his name. Seeing that face again, she hadn’t realized how much she missed it. As weird as it was, he was one of the closest things she had to family. Jon was at Winterfell, and soon she’d be reunited with him, but until then, this was the most familiar thing in her life, other than the small sword at her hip.

With a relieved sob, she stepped over the scattered logs and wrapped her arms around him again. 

“I’m so happy you’re alive.”

He chuckled, pulling her close. “Aye, me too, wolf-girl.”

 

* * *

Arya looked around the campsite—there were about twenty men or so, spread over several fires that smoked lazily in the early evening light. The only men she recognized were Thoros of Myr and Beric Dondarrion, who were still, technically, on her list. She frowned.

“What do we have here? The dog caught a wolf,” Thoros drawled as Arya approached the camp fire with Sandor. 

“The young Stark girl has grown up,” Beric smiled up at her, nodding to a spot next to him on alog. 

Cautiously she sat down, watching as Sandor took a seat across the fire from her. It was an odd, familiar feeling, sitting across from him at a fire here in the Riverlands. She allowed herself a small smile. Beric handed her a charred stick with a rabbit on it. Tentatively, she pulled a good sized chunk off, nodding in thanks before giving it back to him.

“I must say, I’m surprised to see you still alive, girl,” Thoros regarded her through squinted eyes as he took a drink from his skin. “What ever happened to you?”

Arya glanced over at Sandor, raising a brow. Her discomfort must have been apparent, because Thoros tossed the skin her direction. Taking a deep drink, she coughed, expecting wine or ale and getting rum. The priest grinned at her. No wonder he was always in a good mood.

“This one,” she nodded across the fire to Sandor, who frowned at her, “captured me when I ran away from you all, intent on ransoming me to my family,” she said before taking another drink. 

Thoros let out a guffaw as he took the skin back. “What are the odds?”

“Seems almost divine that you’d end up back on the same path,” Beric noted, looking at the both of them with a small smirk. “And on the same day that we met up with him again, no less.”

“Would you shut up about divine bullshit, Dondarrion?” Sandor growled as he took a big bite out of the rabbit. “Just because we can’t seem to kill you doesn’t mean you know shit,” he pointed out through a full mouth, pointing the remains of the charred animal in his direction. 

Divine. What a completely ridiculous concept, that something could be ‘set up’ by the gods. The only thing set up by the gods—the one true god—was death. That was the only inevitable.

“The only thing divine, is death,” Arya said quietly as she stared into the fire.

“Ah, my child, how right you are,” Beric agreed from beside her. “It truly is the only known for us all, as well as the one true enemy. And we’re off to fight this enemy. We were just trying to convince Clegane here to join us—didn’t seem he had much better to do, with his village dead.” 

Arya looked up from the fire to see Sandor watching her uncomfortably. “Beric says there’s an army of dead heading south, to kill us all,” he snorted, clearly ignoring the village comment. 

“We are heading north of the Wall to do our part,” Beric continued, ignoring Sandor’s tone. 

“What exactly are you going to _do_ north of the Wall?” Arya asked, looking over at Thoros. 

“We’ve got plenty of time to figure that out,” Thoros said with a sly look, the words like honey oozing out of his mouth. “You want to join us, girl?”

“My brother is home, at Winterfell.”

“Ah yes, the King in the North, we’ve heard,” Thoros grinned, taking another swig of the rum.

“Might you want to travel with us, child? It may not seem like it, but it’ll be much safer to travel with this bunch than alone. The roads are no place for a lady.”

“I’ve more than handled myself thus far,” Arya gave Beric a cold look. “I’m no lady.” 

“I can see that in your eyes, for certain,” Beric agreed. 

“What I don’t understand,” Thoros said, changing the topic, “is how exactly the two of you found yourselves separated?” He waved his hand between the two of them.

“That one is a stubborn son of a bitch,” Arya said, getting a sneer from Sandor in return.

“Isn’t that the truth,” Thoros chuckled. “What’d the old dog do?”

“It doesn’t matter, priest,” Sandor barked before she could answer, glaring at the red-haired man, putting an end to his questioning.

“Touchy subject, I see,” Thoros grinned as he stood, his hands raised in mock defense. “I’ll leave you all be for the night,” the priest bowed in an exaggerated manner before disappearing further into the camp. 

“And I’m sure you two have plenty to catch up on,” Beric smiled as he also stood, following in the direction Thoros had gone. 

Arya turned back to Sandor who was staring at her across the fire. The sky had turned a deep blue, casting shadows throughout the woods they sat in. Their faces glowed orange in the light of the fire. She couldn’t get over how… _right_ it felt to be sitting here, across from him. Even his scowl felt welcoming and comforting. It was pathetic how starved she was for something familiar. 

“Why wouldn’t you cross me off your little list?” he asked, meeting her cold grey gaze with his warm brown eyes.

“Because I didn’t want you dead anymore,” she said quietly. 

“But suffering my own death was good for you.”

“I was confused,” she snapped, furrowing her thick brow as she glared at him. “I was angry—angry that you had fought Brienne, angry that you had killed Mycah, angry that you didn’t let me burn away the horrible bits on your shoulder, angry that I had started to care—”

Arya stopped and averted her eyes, watching the logs burn in the pit in front of her. She fumbled with the cap on the skin in her hand, desperate for a drink. It was only ale, not Thoros’ rum, but it would have to do. She took a healthy drink. Had she truly cared about the Hound, back then? He had been so mean to her, but he had protected her—or at least tried.

“So what happened to you after you left me to rot?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts. 

“I went to Braavos.”

Sandor chuckled, “Find that friend of yours?”

“Yes, actually,” Arya glowered.

“He the one who coulda killed me with his little finger,” he teased. 

“Yes, and he still probably could. He was an assassin at the House of Black and White, where I trained to become a Faceless Man.” 

“Those fuckers who worship death?”

“One and the same,” she said, meeting his incredulous stare. 

“And why are you back here?”

“To finish my list. Just came from the Twins.” A small, dark smile played at the corner of her lips.

“The Frey’s,” he realized.

“All dead. At least the men are,” she said, her stare unwavering and remorseless. 

“How?”

“Does it matter? They’re dead, and now mother and Robb can rest in peace.”

“Fuck, wolf girl,” Sandor chuckled. He almost looked proud as he appraised her, taking a drink from his skin. “You grew up on me.” 

Arya felt her skin flush and she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was just the drink. 

“And you got old,” she shot back, trying to shake the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach. 

Sandor let out a small bark of a laugh that made her smile. She’d never heard him laugh. Hell, she’d never seen him smile. Not a genuine smile or laugh anyway, one that wasn’t oozing with contempt, like in the cave when he fought Beric. The warm, deep sound that came from him and the crinkle around his eyes made her happy. A tormented soul such as his deserved to smile at least a few times.

 

* * *

Arya woke to a curse and a clatter, opening her eyes to half-bare trees. Her breath clouded in front of her as she sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Sandor was sitting up on the other side of the fire, shaking off a pile of clothing and steel. Thoros stood above him, smirking. 

“The fuck?!” 

“You took Lem’s boots yesterday, figured you might want his other things too. He was about your size, and his clothes were much cleaner than those blood-stained rags you’re wearing.”

“Didn’t have to throw them on me while I was sleeping, you cunt,” Sandor glowered as he appraised the pile in his lap.

“It’s more fun that way,” Thoros grinned, nodding to Arya before sauntering back the way he had come.

Sandor grumbled as he held up the clean tunic. Beside him, he sat a leather sword belt that held a decent looking sword. A yellow cloak with grey fur was at his other side, with a shirt of mail and a black leather jerkin atop it. She watched as he pulled his arms from the bloodied vest and shirt he was wearing. He definitely looked stronger than when they’d traveled together last, and she found herself appreciating the expanse of his chest and the bulk of his arms. She’d seen him like this before—traveling together for months on end leads one to care little for modesty—but now she wasn’t just seeing a man’s chest and thinking nothing of it. Now, something stirred within her as she watched the muscles stretch and tense and her fingers twitched to touch the dark hair that dusted his scarred chest.

“How’s your shoulder?” she asked as she stood, trying to ignore the thoughts she most definitely should not have towards him. 

With the tunic on, but untied at the top, he looked over at it. “Don’t much hurt any more.”

She didn’t know why she felt the need to examine it, to run her fingers over the scarred skin, but when she came to stand beside him he didn’t move. When her fingers brushed over it delicately, he didn’t move. And when she knelt to look at it closer, the smell of campfire and chopped wood on his skin overwhelming her, _she_ didn’t move.

He turned to look at her, an unreadable expression on his face. She met his gaze, unwaveringly, her hand still on his shoulder. 

“Are you two planning to join us, or should we leave you here?” Thoros called over, as he packed up his camp. 

Arya stepped back, feeling a flush on her cheeks. Sandor had quickly shrugged the tunic up onto his shoulder and was tying it, almost too tightly at his neck. 

“Fuck off, priest,” Sandor growled as he stood. 

She heard Thoros chuckle and did her best to ignore his looks as they packed up camp and began their journey North together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover art based on my original drawing [which can be found here](https://wtflommy.deviantart.com/).  
> 


	4. Sandor II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Brotherhood come upon a familiar house.

  

 

* * *

 

 

By late morning, snow had begun to fall heavily as the Brotherhood rode north, with Arya Stark in tow. Arya fucking Stark. 

Sandor had to keep looking over at her to believe it was actually her. What he saw was the same cold, grey eyes, but little else was the same. That fucking sword was still at her hip, a hip which now curved even though she tried to hide it under her baggy clothes. She’d become a young woman since he’d last seen her and her round, childish face had begun to sharpen. The mop of dirty brown hair on her head was now partially pulled back, reminding him of her father, the late Ned Stark. There was a tenseness to her jaw as she swayed back and forth in the saddle that spoke of what she’d been through. 

He wanted to be mad at her for leaving him to suffer. He _was_ mad at her for leaving him to suffer. But the fact that she was alive and well was more important than the pain he’d endured when she had walked away from him that day in the Vale.

Arya must have felt his eyes on her, because she coughed to get his attention. 

“I asked, what was the village Beric was talking about?”

Sandor frowned, hoping she would have missed that comment last night. He felt a twist in his chest as he thought about the pain all those innocent people endured at the hands of the man who’s clothes he now wore. Life was a sick, twisted cycle. 

“Just a group of villagers building a sept who were killed by some cunts from the Brotherhood,” he made a face as he looked out over the grey hills, squinting through the steadily falling snow. 

Arya frowned and he saw her clutch the reins tighter as she looked ahead to where Beric and Thoros rode.

“Wasn’t them,” he clarified and watched as she relaxed, but only slightly. 

“They found you?”

“Aye, mostly dead.”

Sandor saw her scowl deepen and knew she felt bad. 

“But I’m not dead,” he added, with the smallest smile beneath his thick beard. Her grey eyes searched his for a moment before she turned back to the road in front of them.

“Not yet,” she said, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips as well. 

 

* * *

 

By late afternoon, Sandor was completely done with the snow. Perhaps it wasn’t a smart idea to go north of the Wall—no, of course it wasn’t smart to go north of the Wall and _seek out_ the fucking dead. Yet here he was. 

Around him, everything was cast in a blue-grey light and had been for hours now. The snow had begun laying thick on the ground, completely covering the dead grass and bushes that lined the path they followed. Only ten remained in their group now, eight of the Brotherhood, Arya, and himself. The others had forked off to raid the Lannisters that were swarming the Riverlands. 

Thoros was riding on one side of him, Arya on the other. She hadn’t spoken in awhile and seemed to be enjoying the cold winds that chafed their faces. Fucking Northerners. 

“Bad night to be outdoors,” Thoros sighed as they followed a croft fence line. 

“You’ve got real powerful magic to figure that out,” Sandor snapped. He heard Arya hum in amusement from beside him. “The Lord of Light whisper that in your ear? It’s snowing, Thoros. It’s _windy_. It’s going to a cold night.”

Thoros laughed. “You’re a grouchy old bear, aren’t you Clegane?” He leaned closer and Sandor could smell the rum on his breath. How the priest stayed atop his horse was a mystery to him.

“You want some rum?” He held the skin up to him with a smirk.

“Don’t like that shit, it’s too sweet,” he growled, pulling his cloak tighter around his shoulders. 

“Why are you always in such a foul mood?” 

Where to begin? Most recently, the innocent villagers he was building a new life with had been murdered in cold blood and the girl who’d left him for dead was suddenly back in his life. Before that, he had been bitten, beaten, and stabbed as he tried to get her home safe and before that… well before that was the Lannisters, and it pissed him off to even begin thinking about that.

“Experience.”

Beric came up on the other side of Arya as they pulled to a stop to survey the farm down the hill.

“This seems like a good place to spend the night,” he smiled. 

He heard Arya suck in a breath through her teeth and he looked around, wondering what was so special about where they were. Then he realized the fence looked familiar. The yard out in front of the house was familiar and if he squinted in the snow, he could still see the farmer lying on the ground, clutching his head. Sandor’s gut twisted. 

“These people don’t want us here.”

“Seems deserted to me,” Beric noted, looking over at Arya and Sandor. “No live stock, no smoke coming from the chimney.” He turned back to the house with a smile and rode forward. 

Sandor looked over at Arya, who was giving him a dark look. This week was digging up all of his old demons. Reluctantly, he rode forward towards the house. True enough, it was deserted and he couldn’t help but think he had something to do with it. He avoided Arya’s gaze as best he could, for he knew she was shooting him an accusatory glare. 

“I don’t like the look of it,” he barked, ready to sleep outdoors rather than dredge up anymore memories.

Thoros grinned at him as he tied his horse up. “For a big hard man, you scare easy.” 

“I’ll tell you what doesn’t scare me,” he snapped. “Bald cocksuckers like you. You think you’re fooling anyone with that top knot?” 

Thoros smirked and looked over to Arya who was tying up her mare. She rolled her eyes. 

“Bald cunt.”

“Come on, maybe they’ve got some ale hidden away,” Thoros raised his brows towards him. 

Sandor flinched and caught Arya’s glance. 

_‘How can a man not keep ale in his home?’_

“They don’t,” he grumbled. 

Arya watched him as he dismounted and tied his horse up next to her’s. The snows weren’t letting up and as the sun, which had already been nonexistent for hours, disappeared below the horizon, it got colder. It was the smart thing to do, to stay here. But that didn’t mean he had to like it any less.

“Don’t fucking say anything,” he growled, feeling her accusatory glance.

“I’m not the one who stole their silver—” He wanted to cuff the smug look off her face.

“Didn’t I just say shut the fuck up?” Sandor turned to her, leaning closer.

Her eyes were fire as she glared at him, unwavering for a moment before she turned to follow the men inside. Her insolence was still there, that much was for sure. Sandor looked around, cursing himself for deciding to join the trek north. He should have killed those men and gone south to Dorne, away from this snow and wind, away from shitty memories and the Stark bitch. He watched as she disappeared inside the house before following reluctantly. _Worst shit in the seven kingdoms…_

Ducking through the doorway, he watched as a few of the men went off into another room looking for anything of use. Arya was standing stiffly in the middle of the room, while Thoros tried to get a fire started. Blowing hot breath on his frozen fingers, he came to stand next to Arya and felt his heart sink when he saw what had stopped her. 

Curled up on the bed on the floor in the corner were two skeletons, a man and a girl. _The_ man and girl that he’d stolen from years ago. He watched as Arya knelt down beside them, running her fingers over the bloodied knife that had rusted into the bones of the man’s hand. 

She looked up at him with sad grey eyes, and he met her gaze with a frown. Perhaps it was inevitable like he’d said years before, but right now this was his fault as far as he could tell. 

Beric came to stand beside him, looking down at the two bodies.

“How do you think it ended for them?”

“With death,” Sandor said solemnly. 

“Girl died in her father’s arms, both of them covered in blood and a knife at their feet. I’d say they were starving, and rather than let his little girl suffer, he ended it for both of them.” 

Sandor watched as Arya stood, avoiding his gaze as she walked by him to seat herself at the very table they’d sat at last they were here. 

“Doesn’t matter now,” he said angrily, turning to sit down beside her. 

“No… doesn’t matter now,” Beric agreed with a sad smile. 

Sandor glanced at the girl beside him. She was staring at her gloved hands, her face solemn as she continued to avoid his gaze. Beric sat down opposite of them at the table and Sandor scowled as he thought about how many times he’d been brought back.

“I’ve known you a long time, Dondarrion,” he began.

“Aye. I think the first time we met, was at that tournament—”

“And I always thought you were dull as dirt. You’re not bad, I don’t hate you. Don’t like you, but you’re not bad,” he continued, chewing on a piece of dried venison. 

“Thank you, Clegane. That warms the heart,” Beric chuckled. 

“But there’s nothing special about you.”

“You’re right about that.”

“So why does the Lord of Light keep bringing you back? I’ve met better men than you, and they’ve been hanged from crossbeams,” he looked over at Arya for a moment before turning back to Beric, “Or beheaded. Or just shat themselves to death in a field somewhere. None of them came back.”

He looked back to the wolf girl beside him. Her face had softened slightly, the scowl she held in her brow not quite as deep, as she looked up at him. 

“So why you?” 

“You think I don’t ask myself that? Every hour, of every day? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? What does the Lord see in me?” Beric looked down at the ground, in shame. 

“And?” 

“I don’t know,” he said with a sad smile. “I don’t understand our Lord—”

“ _Your_ lord.”

“I don’t know what he wants from me. I only know that, he wants me alive.”

“If he’s so all powerful, why doesn’t he just tell you what the fuck he wants?”

“Clegane,” Thoros called from over at the fire. “Come over here. Don’t worry, the fire won’t bite. I want to show you something.”

Sandor scowled, glancing over at Arya. “It’s my fucking luck I end up with a band of fire worshipers.”

“Aye, almost seems like divine justice.”

“There is no divine justice, you dumb cunt. If there were, you’d be dead and that girl,” he looked over to the corpse in the corner, “would still be alive.” 

“What do you want?” Sandor growled as he stood.

“Look into the flames,” Thoros whispered.

“I don’t want to look in the damn flames.”

“You saw me bring him back after you cut him down, don’t you want to know what gave me the power?”

“I keep asking and no one wants to tell me,” he griped, looking over at Beric.

"We can’t tell you, only the fire can tell you,” Thoros said quietly as he turned back to the hearth.

Sandor rolled his eyes, but looked over at Arya skeptically. One of her dark brows was raised, mirroring his expression. With a sigh, he walked closer to the fire, cautiously. 

“What do you see?” Thoros whispered.

 

* * *

Sandor didn’t think he could have an even more uncomfortable relationship with fire, but Thoros had proved him wrong with the vision in the flames. He still wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the priest’s or truly divine, but he was affected by it none the less. Sandor had laid on the straw-filled bed staring at the ceiling for a long time, thinking about his opinions on the gods and the events of the last day. Long enough that Arya’s breathing had slowed beside him. Her back was to him and despite doing his best to keep his distance, he craved the comfort of the warmth she gave off. Beric had insisted she take the bed, once they’d removed the corpses and found dusty but unsoiled linens. Arya had complained it was a waste for one person and she wasn’t a lady who needed to be coddled and Thoros had suggested with a smirk that Sandor take the second spot, since he was closest with the girl. 

That was hours ago. He looked around the room from his place on the bed. Everything was bathed in the faint blue hue of the moon that came in through the slats of the closed window. The wind howled quietly through the cracks in the door. He remembered hearing it the night of the storm when they had sat at the table eating stew. It had been their first meal in days and looking back, he wasn’t sure if he had ever thanked the man for his generosity. No, the Hound wouldn’t have. He did steal his silver after all. 

Sandor sat up with a quiet grunt, squinting to get his bearings in the dark room. Thoros slept in front of the dying fire, Beric was on the floor between the table and the wall, and the other men were spread out in various nooks in this room and the next. Soft snores chorused with the howling wind as Sandor got to his feet as gently as a man of his size could from a position on the floor. His leg ached. Looking down he sighed in relief, Arya had not moved.

Stepping over the sleeping bodies, he made his way outside. The snow stung his face as he looked down at the two bodies wrapped in the soiled cloth with a frown. Taking three trips, he took each body and then a shovel into the field next to the house where he began digging a large grave to put them to rest. It was the least he could do.

He didn’t know how long he was out in the snow storm, digging that grave. He’d lost feeling in his fingers a long time ago and knew he’d have painful blisters tomorrow. But at least he was still alive. Fucking cold, but alive. He was almost done digging when he heard the crunch of footsteps. 

“What are you doing out here?” her small voice asked, barely audible over the howl of the storm. 

“Burying the dead,” he said with a grunt as he pushed the shovel into the hard ground once more, scooping out the final bit of dirt. 

As he speared the shovel into the pile of dirt beside him, Arya approached, watching him quietly. She didn’t have her cloak on either.

“You’ll freeze out here, girl,” he said as he picked up the first body and gently lowered it into the grave.

“I’ll last longer than you,” she said with a small smirk.

Sandor regarded her for a moment as the snow swirled around them. A look of arrogance had been plastered on her face since he’d ran into her yesterday, pulled tight like she knew better than those around her. But now, her face was soft, sad, as she looked down at the grave between the two of them. He picked up the second body, the daughter, and laid it atop the father. Grabbing his shovel again, he began quickly covering them, as though to bury both the bodies and the memory. 

Arya grabbed another shovel that was lying against a cart not far away and helped him fill the hole much quicker than it had been to dig. They dropped their shovels simultaneously and stood silently next to each other, over the grave. 

“We ask the father to judge us with mercy,” he began, trying to remember what the farmer had said before dinner years ago. 

“We ask the mother to… fuck it, I don’t remember the rest,” he frowned, pushing his hair out of his face. Arya had stepped slightly closer to him, but made no sound. 

“I’m sorry you’re dead. You deserved better. Both of you.”

Sandor stared down at the grave, feeling like this was what he was supposed to do, to honor them in a moment of silence. He tensed slightly when he felt a small arm slide around his back to meet the other in a hug around his waist as Arya pressed herself to his side. He sent a silent blessing to the gods, whichever one it was, for her presence at that moment. His arm, sore from shoveling, wrapped around her shoulder and pulled her close. She didn’t say anything, just held onto him as they stared down at the grave of the farmer and his daughter. 

The snow swirled around them angrily and death was marching towards them from the north. But in that moment, he felt peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover art based on my original drawing [which can be found here](https://wtflommy.deviantart.com/).  
> 


	5. Arya III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya realizes winter is here before meeting a part of her past she'd thought long gone.

   

 

* * *

 

It was an interesting thing, watching this man change in front of her eyes. Going from a cold-hearted, blood-thirsty killer who held no remorse for his actions, to a decidedly tame old dog who still had an angry bark but whose bite was no longer as vicious. Arya wasn’t sure if it was the visions in the flames or simply being at the farmer’s house again that roused him, but she was surprised when she woke to the sounds of shoveling outside and felt the bed cold beside her. 

Of course, his redemption had been going on long before this night. Even when they traveled, she had seen a shift in his behavior, as he had snapped at her less, given her the larger portion of food, even begrudgingly held her close when he would find her shivering in the middle of the night. At the time, had he tried to do such a thing when she was awake, she would have shoved Needle through his eye, and if she ever mentioned what he’d done for her, he would have vehemently denied it, calling her a fair maiden who should be ashamed to call herself a Northerner if she couldn’t handle a little cold. They never talked about feelings or thoughts without a spiteful jab thrown in, as though it were a bad thing to be human. 

Until he had finally cracked and told her about his brother. She had seen him broken for the first time then, had watched him from the other side of their camp with pity and had she been the old Arya Stark, the innocent tom-boy from Winterfell, she may have offered him a hug—not that he would have taken it. Not then. So she offered the next best thing, her ear and a gentle touch.

But now, reunited, she felt a call to be close to him as though he’d fall over a cliffside again and really die this time. 

So naturally, when she’d heard the shoveling and noticed the lack of his weight and warmth beside her on the itchy bed, she didn’t just lay there, she went looking for him. It had been a sad scene, watching him in the snow storm as he dug that grave by himself for two people whose deaths he may have been indirectly responsible for. But it also made her think: if the Hound could become Sandor Clegane, could No One truly become Arya Stark again? 

It had been heart breaking as he had tried to speak the prayer once they’d finished covering the grave. She knew it was the same prayer the farmer had spoke before they ate, when he’d snapped at how slow the man spoke. At one point in her life, she knew the prayer, her mother had taught it to her. But when he stumbled on the words, hesitating for a moment as he tried to remember what to say, she realized she no longer remembered the words either. She was heading home, but would she just be a stranger within those grey stone walls? 

When she’d put her arms around him in an effort to reassure him that it was the past and she wasn’t truly upset at him for what he had done, she swore she heard a sigh of relief as he put his arm around her. She wasn’t sure how long they had stood there, but however long it had been, it felt right. Sandor towered over her still to this day, but somehow their bodies both jutted and curved at the right places, like two pieces of a puzzle. He had been solid and warm, a welcome change from the endless months of loneliness in Braavos. Being held by him, she hadn’t realized how much she missed the touch of another person, one that wasn’t malicious or wanting, like the waif’s or the sleazy men in the alleys. Lady Crane had been kind and gentle to her, but Sandor’s touch, as simple and innocent as it was, felt different, much like the day prior when she’d check on his shoulder. 

They spoke no words of what happened at the farmhouse as they continued their travels north. It was something that only concerned the two of them, and that was as far as it needed to go; another moment in her life that she’d remember for a long time to come, that had been with this man, like so many others. 

Though Thoros had made a point of poking fun at Sandor when he moved slow the next morning as they left the farm. The priest was growing on her.

 

* * *

The snow had stopped, thankfully, but it was still just as cold. The wind bit at her cheeks and where once it was refreshing, it had begun to chafe and sting. Her house words rang in her ears, in her father’s voice, over and over.

Winter is coming. Winter is coming. Winter is coming. 

“Winter is here,” she mumbled to herself as they plodded along the trail. 

“What’s that?” Beric asked as he rode next to her. 

Arya looked over at the one-eyed man. He looked tired, like he’d truly lived seven lives, yet he still held a smile on his face, almost always, as though he knew a secret no one else did. She should have been angry at them still for what they had done to Gendry, but it had been so long ago and her memory of the smith was so faint now that she found it hard to remember what he looked like. Of course she was upset at what had happened to him, he had been her friend, but just like Mycah, it wasn’t black and white. Sandor had taken care of her and protected her, leading her to slowly forgive him for the butcher’s boy, and Beric and Thoros were offering protection—not that she needed it—and attempting to do something for the larger good as they headed north. Perhaps she could forgive but not forget.

“I said, ‘winter is here,’” Arya repeated. 

“Aye, right you are,” Beric smiled. “I heard the white ravens have been sent out. The Stark words hold true once more.”

“Sometimes I wish they didn’t,” she said softly, looking out over the dead fields to her left. 

“You look just like him, you know,” Beric noted.

“Who?”

“Your father. His hair, his eyes, even that Stark scowl,” he chuckled.

“I don’t scowl,” she said, making a face.

“Like hell you don’t,” Sandor said from the other side of her. She glared at him. 

“He was a good man, Ned Stark,” Beric recalled.

“And it got him killed,” she said quietly as she remembered the day at Baelor’s statue. 

“His _honor_ got him killed,” Sandor corrected. “If he would have just left well enough alone, let Joffrey become king, he’d still be here.”

Arya could feel tears welling up in her eyes. She squeezed them tight but behind her eyelids all she could see was her sister and Cersei and Joffrey and… the Hound… 

“You were there,” Arya scoffed, scowling at him out of the corner of her eye. 

“Aye, I was there. Picked your daddy’s head up before it went tumbling into the crowd,” he said, too fast, for she could see him wince the moment the words left his mouth. “I was that cunt’s guard dog, what was I supposed to do?”

“Seems to be your excuse a lot,” she sneered.

“Not anymore,” Sandor said with a frown, looking off into the trees to their right. “‘m done making excuses, doing the bidding of other’s.”

Arya watched him for a time, studying him. She believed his words, she heard the remorse in his voice. Was this what her future would be? Regretting the actions in the past? No, she thought, her deeds were to avenge her family, not killing innocents because some brat told her to. Arya sighed, turning back to the road. It would be a long journey home.

 

* * *

The horses had been anxious as they made their way through the forest of the Riverlands. Spooking and braying at nothing, or so they all thought. Even once they had made camp for the night, the horses still pawed restlessly at the ground, pulling at their ropes. 

The men had ignored the animals, huddling close to the fires as their dinner cooked. And Arya had tried to pay attention to the story Thoros was drunkenly telling, but something was off. Without saying a word, she stood and walked off in the direction the horses seemed to be wary of. 

She walked for maybe a dozen yards before she stopped, hearing the crack of a branch behind her. Turning around, she exhaled in relief as she saw Sandor coming towards her. 

“What are you doing out here, girl?” He tipped the skin he held back, taking a drink before offering it to her. She declined.

“There’s something out here,” she said, turning back to continue walking. 

“Aye, there are usually things in the woods,” he grumbled as he caught up to her, falling in pace with her. 

“Didn’t you see the horses?”

“They seemed a bit off, but we’re in the woods and the men are drunk. Lots of things to be spooked by,” Sandor said, bored. He took another drink from the skin.

Arya shook her head, her dark brow furrowing as she stopped again. She knelt to the ground and ran her hand over the cold earth, picking at the dead leaves and twigs that littered its surface. There was another rustle in the bracken and she came to her feet quickly, whipping around to see who else had followed them. 

But no one was there. 

From the direction she had been heading, another sound caught her ear and she turned around again. Wide eyed, she looked up at Sandor, whose one good brow was raised in suspicion, his hand on his sword hilt. 

Then came the growls and they both drew their swords as a pack of wolves began surrounding them. Snarling, snapping teeth came closer and Arya felt herself bump up against Sandor’s side, Needle held out in front of her as she watched the wolves come closer. 

“Told you there was something out here,” she whispered.

“And you just had to come after it,” he snapped back, sneering at the angry animals that surrounded them. 

The pack stopped and watched them for a moment, teeth still snarling and snapping. Other than their growls, the forest was silent. Until she heard a crunch behind her, and turned, wide eyed, to see a giant wolf snarling at her. 

“Fuck…” Sandor grumbled under his breath. 

It took her a moment of staring in fear, her breath clouding in front of her, her heart in her throat, before she recognized the yellow eyes staring at her.

“Nymeria?”

Cautiously she reached her hand out and the wolf growled low in her throat. Slowly she sat Needle down on the ground and heard a mumble of protest from Sandor as she slowly started to approach.

“Nymeria, it’s me. Arya,” she continued slowly towards the direwolf.

The beast’s eyes softened and she quit snarling. Arya watched as her nostrils pulsated, sniffing the air. 

“I’m heading north, girl. Back to Winterfell, I’m finally going home.”

There was an excitement in her voice. Perhaps Beric truly was on to something when he spoke of divinity. Jon was alive, Nymeria was here, things were falling into place. 

“Come with me,” she pleaded, holding her hand out again, taking another step closer. The wolf lowered its head, smelling her hand as it looked at her. Arya swore the animal really knew who she was, even after all these years. 

“Come with me,” she asked again, with a smile, her hand mere inches from her direwolf’s muzzle. 

And then her heart sank. Nymeria turned from her and began retreating into the woods, her pack following her. Arya looked around, sadness griping her as she watched the animals disappear into the trees. Then she realized just how similar she was to her wolf, not wanting to be caged and commanded, locked behind stone walls. Just like she’d sneered at her father when he’d told her she would be a lady of a great house one day, with sons and a household to manage, Nymeria was no longer the pet she’d once been. 

A small smile crept over her cold lips as Sandor walked up behind her. 

“That’s not you.”

She stood there watching the trees where Nymeria had disappeared, part of her glad she at least got to see the wolf and know she was safe, and another part of her sad that she’d never be close with her again. Arya wondered if any of the other direwolves were still alive.

A large, warm hand on her shoulder broke her from her reverie and she looked up, brow cocked. Sandor’s face was soft, warm—unlike what she was used to. There was no way this man was the Hound anymore. 

He offered her the skin and she took it eagerly this time, tipping it back to an approving grunt from him. 

 

* * *

“I can’t sleep.”

“Neither can I with your incessant teeth-chattering.”

Arya sat up on her elbow, indignant. “I am _not_ chattering.”

“Like hell you’re not,” Sandor grumbled from his place across the now-dead fire from her. 

“Well, it’s not my fault you refuse to keep a fire going. If I’m cold, it’s because of you,” she raised her brow towards his dark figure. 

“Can the lady not handle the cold? Is she not from the North?” 

“I’m not—”

“A lady, I know. You won’t shut up about it, like your teeth won’t shut up,” Sandor muttered, shifting on his bedroll. 

Arya laid back down on her own bedroll with a huff, making exaggerated movements as she tried to get comfortable. 

“What are you going to do in the North?”

“I’ll go to Winterfell first, see you’re there safe, then continue on with the Brotherhood,” Sandor said with a sigh.

“Where to?”

Sandor exhaled deeply, clearly annoyed. “North of the Wall, I would guess.”

“But why?”

“Are you just talking because you’re cold?” 

Arya made a face, but knew he couldn’t see it. She could see him; her eyes had been trained to see in the darkness. He was just a pile of furs, like a bear, just as Thoros had said the day before. There was a twist in her chest at the thought of him going north of the Wall, seeking out death. She didn’t like it.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?” 

“Yes, I’m talking because I’m cold and I can’t sleep.” 

She didn’t hear anything for a moment, just the distant chirping of bugs and night critters in the forest around them. Arya listened hard for the howl of a wolf, but didn’t hear anything. 

“Girl,” his voice was low, gruff, and clearly exasperated. “Come over here.”

“What do y—”

“For fuck’s sake, are you cold or not? Get over here, bring your furs.”

Arya felt her skin flush and suddenly she didn’t feel so cold. The last time he’d done this for her, she had been a child who needed warmth. Now, she still needed warmth but found herself feeling a new type of warmth low in her belly that she didn’t know what to do with. Ever since her time in Braavos, when men would try to touch her as she disguised herself as someone else on a mission, she had started to consider the touch of a man in a new way. 

“ _Girl_.”

Slowly she got up, looking around at the other dim fires around them. She wasn’t sure why she suddenly felt so self-conscious about moving about the camp. The fur felt heavy, weighed down with anxiety in her small hand, as she clutched it tightly and stepped carefully around their things. 

“Such a girl,” he grumbled as she laid down next to him, draping her fur over herself as he tucked her into his side.

“Not that it’s relevant, but I am a girl, in case you hadn’t noticed,” she pointed out quietly as she pulled the fur up to her chin. 

“Aye, I’ve noticed,” Sandor said, stiffly lying on his back. 

The words were said innocently enough but that warmth in the pit of her stomach grew. Despite the feeling, she had to admit she was growing warmer. She also felt an odd sense of comfort—of safety—that she knew she didn’t need, but liked all the same.

“So you want to see me get home safe?” she asked over her shoulder when she couldn’t quiet her mind.

“Would you shut up and go to sleep,” Sandor groused as he pulled the fur over her head in protest of her questioning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover art based on my original drawing [which can be found here](https://wtflommy.deviantart.com/).  
> 


	6. Sandor III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor gets a small peak into what Arya has become. Beric offers some words of hope?

  

 

 

* * *

 

 

The trek north continued to get worse the further they traveled. Between the snow and the biting winds, their travels had slowed significantly. Each night, everyone huddle close to one another for warmth and on more than one occasion Sandor noticed some of the men of the Brotherhood whom he did not know eyeing Arya, which only served to make him more protective. He’d watched out for her safety once before, and he’d do it again. 

So he had made excuses to keep her close by such as complaining that she’d just wake him in the middle of the night anyway or that a _lady_ shouldn’t trek off into the woods by herself. She’d argued with him every moment of it, but none the less allowed him to get close, whether that was following her into the woods to forage or hunt, or to provide warm in the cold nights like every other person begrudgingly received from a fellow traveler.

It had been an awkward thing, sleeping so close to this girl-turned-woman who had once literally been the death of him. He fought with it in his mind on a constant basis, hating her one moment and feeling an irrepressible need to protect her the next. And lying beside her at night only served to make matters more complicated, for he was but a man. A man who had not touched a woman in years. He’d realized he hadn’t laid with a woman—a whore of course, because who would lay with him for no coin—since he had escaped King’s Landing some four years prior and the thought made him sick. No man should be so long without a woman. But no man should force himself upon a woman either, particularly one who reluctantly accepted the help he offered.

Over the years he had gotten good at repressing feelings and desires alike, and this was no different. It wasn’t _her_ that was doing it to him, it was the mere presence of a woman close that did it. He’d never touch her—she was high born and far too young and honestly would probably geld him if he even thought of it. 

But as he rode, a little voice in the back of his head kept nagging him that it couldn’t be mere coincidence that they had been reunited after so long. He chose to ignore it.

 

* * *

At midday the travelers approached a ransacked village just off the King’s Road, somewhere in the Neck. Sandor maneuvered his horse through the carnage, avoiding bloodied corpses, broken barrels and overturned carts. 

“What do you think happened?” Beric asked as he dismounted his horse, his boots squelching into the snowy mud. 

“They were attacked,” Sandor noted matter-of-factly as he pulled his horse to a stop. 

Arya climbed off her mare, handing her reins to Sandor. She knelt down beside the body of an old man and slowly pulled his eyes shut. 

“Their bodies are still warm,” she said as she wiped her hand on her pant leg. “This didn’t happen long ago.”

Sandor made a face as he dismounted, looking around the small village. There were three small huts and a broken pen that had likely held livestock. The huts weren’t burnt down, fortunately, but all of the people—three old men, two younger men, four girls and two women—had been slaughtered.

“Spread out. A few of you, head up the road—you all, check out the woods, see if you find anything,” Beric commanded as he surveyed the yard.

A rasping wail came from inside the hut closest to where Sandor stood. Drawing his sword, he moved through the muddy slush towards the noise, Arya not far behind him.

Inside the hut a woman laid, bleeding heavily, mortally, on the ground. Arya walked around Sandor to kneel by her side as she leaned against the wall.

“What happened here?” Her eyes were cold, still, and calculating as she looked the woman over, but her voice was warm, soothing even.

The woman gasped, her face twisted up in anguish as she clutched her stomach. Her very pregnant stomach, Sandor noticed with a frown. 

“They just attacked out of no where,” she managed through clenched teeth. Tears were streaming down her bloodied face. 

“Who?” Sandor asked, sheathing his sword as he came to stand behind Arya. 

The woman shook her head, unsure, before letting out a pained yelp as she grabbed Arya’s arm tightly. “My baby…”

Sandor watched as Arya pulled a dirk from her bootleg. He grabbed her shoulder, causing her to turn with a glare.

“Let me do it, girl,” he offered as she stood, turning away from the dying woman.

“What makes you think I can’t do it?” she snapped at him in a hushed voice, clearly offended.

“Just figured you wouldn’t want to,” Sandor lowered his eyes to the woman on the floor.

“Since when do you care if I _want_ to do something or not?” 

“Please… let her,” the woman moaned in agony from the floor. 

Arya met his gaze with ferocity and a tight jaw. She jutted her head towards the door, motioning him to leave her be with the woman. Sandor looked down at the dying woman, a sad twist in the corner of his lips, before he saw himself out of the hut. 

“We’ll gather the bodies to be burned when the rest get back,” Thoros was saying to Beric as Sandor approached. 

“You think it’s safe to stay here for the night?” he looked down at the two men who stood close to each other. 

“Safe enough to risk it for the shelter,” Beric considered. “We’ll change watch every few hours to be sure.”

Arya came out of the hut after a time, wiping her blade on her thigh, her bloodied hand deftly putting it back in her boot. She looked at him then, and the look he saw in her eye was similar to the one he’d seen right before she left him for dead in the Vale. Cold. Merciless. Emotionless. As though she was purposely pushing away any possibly reaction to the situation she was in. A shiver ran down his spine, and not one caused by the frigid winds.

“Shall we collect firewood, then?” she asked in a disaffected tone.

Sandor followed her off into the woods looking for dry wood, while the remaining men began gathering the bodies and setting up camp. The woods were thick and capable of blocking the majority of snowfall from hitting the pine needle covered forest floor, but there was still a dampness to the air that permeated everything. They walked in silence for awhile, occasionally stopping to check the tree branches. 

“Did you hear about the dragon queen?” Arya asked after a time, walking ahead of him.

“Aye, what of it?”

“They say she has three full grown dragons—you think she’ll lay waste to King’s Landing?”

“Here’s hoping,” Sandor grumbled as he snapped a branch from a tree. “These look pretty dry.”

“I can’t believe dragons are actually real,” Arya mused. She had a distant smile on her face that spoke of daydreams in other worlds. 

“Fire breathing fuckers, keep ‘em away.” 

“You don’t want to at least _see_ one?”

“Not really,” he eyed her before turning back to hack at a thick branch with a small axe. “In case you forgot, me and fire don’t exactly see eye to eye.”

Out of the corner of his eye he could see her watching him. It made his skin tingle, the look she had in her eyes these days. Sandor turned to her just as she was about to say something when suddenly her hand was on the hilt of her little sword and her eyes went dark as she looked past him. 

“Wha—”

She motioned for him to be quiet and he turned to see what she was looking at. Besides the steadily thickening evening fog rolling through the swamplands, twisting past trees and bushes, he saw nothing. Was there really something there? 

“Are you fucking with me, girl?” he said in as much of a whisper as he could manage. 

“I said shut up,” she rasped back as she crept past him towards the haze, her dingy cloak floating behind her. 

He watched as her small form disappeared quickly into the trees and, muttering a string of curses under his breath, he chased after her. It all felt too familiar, him running after her into danger.

The fog was thick, making it hard to see where she had gone. Sandor paused for a second, listening for any clue as to the direction she had gone, but he didn’t hear anything. It was like walking in a dimly lit room; he could make out the closest shapes but had no true sense where he was or where she had gone. He cursed the Neck and its nasty bogs, remembering how utterly debilitating the fogs had gotten when King Robert’s party had traveled to Winterfell and back. 

That felt like a lifetime ago. He remembered the Stark receiving line as Robert greeted them, but he had completely overlooked the youngest daughter in that moment. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember any of their faces other than Ned and Catelyn’s. During the feast, he recalled the bastard son—now King in the North—brooding with a skin of wine in the training yard. He had felt a kinship to the boy then in some odd way, but he had kept to himself with his own skin of wine. They had stayed in Winterfell for a fortnight, which hardly seemed the appropriate length of time given how long it took them to get there and how long the journey back would be. But Robert was an impatient man and once he’d paid his respects and managed to trick Ned into becoming his hand, he had been ready to head back to warmer weather.

One afternoon as he watched Joffrey spar with the Stark boys, he had caught a glance of her. A mere twig of a child, she had stolen a soldier’s helmet and had a training sword in hand, barely able to lift it all the way. She had tried to spar with one of her brothers—Bran, he recalled. Arya had made fun of him for his skill in archery, or lack there of, and just as Bran was about to retaliate, their Master of Arms had interrupted, taking the helmet and sword from her and ordering her back inside with the other women. Arya had put up a fight, claiming she didn’t want to waste her life sewing and singing, but the old man had been adamant. Sandor recalled being impressed by the tiny whelp.

“You fucking bitch!”

Sandor shook himself from his thoughts, squinting through the fog in the direction of the yell. It wasn’t Arya, and it wasn’t any of the men they were traveling with. Half blind, he made his way through the haze until he came upon her. He watched as she twirled her sword in her hand and returned it behind her back, edging around the disheveled man who threatened her with a double edged axe. Another man was at their feet, throat slit with precision, bleeding out on the cold ground. 

Her movements were more fluid than when she’d practiced in the Riverlands years ago. When he had taunted her for her silly dancing and her dead dancing master. When he’d hit her and yelled at her that a sword and armor were more important than fancy moves. Now, however, her efforts were clearly paying off as she worked around this man, biding her time, waiting for him to make the first move before expertly pressing her tiny sword into his flesh at the exact right moment. 

As the other man lunged at her, heaving his axe high with a yell, she spun around him, slicing his side as she went. The hairs on the back of Sandor’s neck rose as he watched, wanting to help but also not wanting to distract this princess of death from what she was doing. He was entranced—the only other woman he’d seen fight with any semblance of skill had been the one who had cut him down in one of his weaker moments. When he had been protecting the girl in front of him. No—the woman. Arya Stark was no longer a child, that much was certain. 

The bandit came towards her, swinging the axe again and she swept backwards, ducking his blow in an almost unnatural move—surely she should have fallen over at that angle. Instead she not only stood but slid past him again, slicing at his calf before setting herself back in the same pose he’d come upon a moment prior. 

This time however, she was facing him, and the bandit had his back to him. Sandor felt his skin prickle as she stared at him for a moment, a cold finality to her gaze as she stood there with her sword behind her back, her eyebrows cocked in anticipation. The man she fought was huffing, large bursts of cold breath clouding in front of him as he decided his next move. Sandor noticed she didn’t make a move until her opponent decided it, waiting patiently to continue the dance.

That was, until she reached into her cloak, grabbed a dirk and flung it in his direction within a moment’s time, barely enough for him to register what she had done. Sandor could feel the blade sing past his shoulder and heard the solid, wet thud as it hit whatever target it was aimed for behind him. In that same moment, she had dodged yet another sloppy swing from the bandit and finished him off with ease. 

Sandor turned around to see a man, covered in old blood, grasping at his neck as he fell to the ground. The dirk had found its way right into his windpipe and he could hear the wet gurgle of life’s final breaths draining from him. 

Turning back, he saw Arya stalking towards him. Her jaw was set tight and she was focused on the man behind him. Pulling her blade from his neck, she wiped it on her increasingly bloodied pant leg and looked up at him. 

“Guess those were our raiders,” she said with cold precision, before turning back towards the huts. 

Well, he thought, her silly water dancing had most definitely paid off.

 

* * *

Another week’s travel found them north of Moat Cailin in the Barrowlands. From what she’d told him, Arya figured they had yet another week of travel ahead of them before they would finally arrive at Winterfell. 

Over the last few weeks, as it had gotten increasingly colder, forcing members of their traveling party closer during the night, Sandor had noticed one pair in particular. It wasn’t his business or his nature to notice such things, but with such a weird relationship with Thoros and Beric as it were, it was hard not to notice them. It was subtle, he had to admit, at least he thought. While the other men had begrudgingly laid closer, it was always back to back. But Beric and Thoros laid together, whispering to each other as though there were plans to be made with their _lord_ that no one else could know. 

“What’s the deal with you and the priest?” Sandor had asked with little desire for tact one evening as the two of them sat alone by a fire. Arya had gone off to quickly wash at a nearby stream and Thoros was off talking to some men at another fire. 

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Beric said with his signature smile, one that Sandor wanted to smack off his one-eyed face. 

“Don’t play that with me, Dondarrion,” Sandor growled as he tipped back Thoros’ skin of rum. It was, unfortunately, the only thing left, since the priest had insisted on bringing so many. The sweetness of it stuck to the back of his throat, cloying at his tongue, but it numbed him all the same. 

“I see the way you two lie together, chatting like maidens in a corner talking of some fancy knight.”

Beric chuckled darkly as he looked up from the fire. “It’s hardly like that.”

“Then what—none of the other men here have conversations like that.”

“Aye, and none of them have the warmth of a woman to ease them at night,” Beric raised his brow towards him. 

Sandor made a face. “It’s not like that. I just know her best,” he repeated Thoros’ words as though they would mean something in his head. 

Beric regarded him silently for an unnerving moment that made Sandor regret asking. Arya had come back, and was talking with Thoros and some of the other men at a fire a ways down.

“None of these other men have been through what Thoros and I have been through together. He’s given me life, Clegane. No one else can claim that.”

“I thought your _lord_ gave you your life,” Sandor raised his good brow at him. 

“Aye, that is true,” Beric nodded. His face twisted up in thought as he looked off into the trees and nothingness that surrounded them in the night. 

“When you’ve been to the other side, you develop certain… reactions… to day to day life, or night to night life, as it were in this case,” Beric thought aloud. 

Sandor furrowed his brow, unsure what the one-eyed knight was getting at. 

“Thoros keeps the darkness away. The darkness that only those who have experienced death can know,” he said after a time. “You’ve experienced death, no, Clegane?”

“Close to it,” he said solemnly as he watched Thoros and Arya walk back towards their fire.

“Well in which case, I hope one day you can find someone to do the same for you,” Beric offered, looking up at the Stark girl as she sat down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover art based on my original drawing [which can be found here](https://wtflommy.deviantart.com/).  
> 


	7. Arya IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya finally comes home.

 

 

* * *

 

The closer they got to Winterfell, the more anxious Arya found herself getting. Soon enough she would be reunited with Jon, be within familiar, safe walls and finally be able to rest easy. And she knew that Jon would love her all the same, no matter the monster she had been forced to become. But that didn’t change the fact that she still worried that he wouldn’t want her anymore. Who would want someone like her?

Someone who had most recently killed an entire family of men. Someone who took pleasure in slicing throats and watching her blade disappear into flesh. Someone who was more wild animal than she was high born lady, just as Cersei had said all those years ago. 

And who would Jon be? The bastard boy who was used to residing in the shadows now King in the North. She felt a twinge in her chest as she thought about Robb and what had happened to him when he declared himself King in the North. The thought of Jon suffering the same fate was too much to bear.

As they stood atop the hill near Castle Cerwyn, a mere half day’s ride from Winterfell, she found herself fighting an invisible barrier that pushed her away from her home’s walls. 

“Stop staring at me,” she snapped, turning to Sandor who sat on his horse beside her. 

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, girl,” he said gruffly, raising his good brow in her direction. 

The ghost of a life lost, perhaps. It wasn’t like returning to Winterfell was going to change what had happened over the last five years. Arya tried to remind herself that just like her, Jon would have gone through hellish experiences too. If Hot Pie’s mention of this battle of the bastards was anything to believe, he had sacrificed a lot to get their home back. The home whose name he’d never have. 

Arya frowned and turned back to the white hills. Winterfell loomed in the distance, dark and powerful and comforting all the same. Her heart pounded heavily in her ears in anticipation. The wind bit at her exposed face and she closed her eyes, breathing the cold air deep into her lungs. She was home, finally. That was all that mattered.

 

* * *

“‘ey, ‘old up,” the guard commanded as he blocked her way. She didn’t recognize these young men, who couldn’t have been much older than she was. 

Sandor and the remaining Brotherhood had stayed back in Wintertown, finding shelter at the Smoking Log while she went to see her brother. She needed time alone with him, for a true reunion not interrupted by a group of rag-tag men trailing behind her. 

“Where you goin’?” the fat one asked, looking down his nose at her. 

Arya cocked a brow, nodding to the courtyard behind them. “In there. I live here.”

The fat one snickered, shaking his head. “Fuck off.”

“I’m Arya Stark, this is my home,” she smiled, wondering if that would help her gain access. 

Both of the men just laughed at her. She flared her nostrils in frustration. 

“Arya Stark’s dead,” the skinny one ridiculed. 

There were times she felt dead, that much was for certain. But she wouldn’t get this far only to be denied access to her home. 

“Send for Maester Luwin, or Ser Rodrick, they’ll tell you who I am,” she offered, her brows raised in anticipation. 

“There’s no Rodrick here,” the skinny one said.

“Maester’s name is Wolkan,” the fat one remarked. 

_Oh seven hells._

“Go ask Jon Snow then, the King in the North. He’s my brother.”

“He’s a thousand miles away.” 

Arya frowned. Had she really come all this way and he wasn’t even here? 

“Look, it’s cold and we’re busy. So, you know, best fuck off,” the skinny one threatened. 

“If Jon’s gone, who’s in charge of Winterfell?” 

The guards sighed, clearly annoyed by her presence. “The Lady of Winterfell. Lady Stark.”

Had Jon married? Surely she would have heard about it on the road. “Which Lady Stark?”

“You tell us, you’re the one impersonatin’ her sister,” the fat one said. Arya felt her stomach flip, Sansa was alive and home as well. 

“Tell _Sansa_ her sister is here.”

“Lady Sansa is too busy to waste a breath on you. Just like us,” the fat one snapped, his patience growing thin. “So for the last time, fuck. off.”

Arya knew he was going to swing before he’d finished his sentence. Not that a man of his size would have been able to catch her. When he did finally swing, she dodged with ease, growing annoyed as well.

“I’m getting into that castle one way or another. If I’m not who I say I am, I won’t last long. But if I am,” she raised her brows to them, her eyes growing dark, “and Sansa finds out you turned me away…”

The skinny one looked genuinely frightened for a moment. He shared a glance with the fat one before turning towards the yard. Arya followed slowly, looking around her long-missed home. 

“You sit there,” the skinny one pointed to a cart. “Right there. Don’t move.”

Arya let out a shaky breath as she looked around the busy courtyard. Men and women were hurrying along, carrying buckets and bags of goods, hammering away at the forge, huddling around the braziers. She didn’t recognize a single one of them, she noticed with a frown. 

When she looked up to the galleries, she could almost see mother and father standing there, watching over them from above. Her chest tightened at the thought. A fluttering caught her eye and she turned to see the Stark banner floating against the rough grey stone. She was finally home. And she needed to see father. 

Arya watched the two dim-witted guards bickering about who would go tell Sansa. She took that moment to slip away, knowing they wouldn’t hear her. Sansa would know where to find her, she thought to herself as she stepped silently down the crypt stairs. 

The crypt was dark, with not nearly enough candles burning as she walked down the hall past her ancestors. She could feel a wetness in the corner of her eye as she came to stand before her father—or rather, a poor imitation of him. It wasn’t more than five minutes before she heard footsteps and knew from the pace that it was Sansa. 

“Do I have to call you Lady Stark?” she asked, not turning from father. 

There was silence for a moment and she thought she had imagined her sister’s presence. 

“Yes,” her sister’s soft voice finally came and it was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard. So many years of fighting and arguing and hate were put aside in that moment, because all that mattered right now was that she was finally reunited with her own blood. 

Arya turned to where her sister stood, and she was surprised by what she saw. She wasn’t sure why she was so surprised. After all, it had been five years and Sansa clearly wouldn’t be the girl standing in a summer’s dress with her hair done like the southern ladies like Arya pictured when she closed her eyes. But she was still a vision none-the-less, proper and poised and so completely opposite from herself.

Sansa stared at her for a moment before a smile graced her lips and she rushed towards her. Arya still couldn’t believe it was her. Even when Sansa wrapped her arms around her and Arya took in the smell of vanilla and lemon and crisp, cold northern air, she didn’t believe it was true. 

“You shouldn’t have run from the guards,” Sansa grinned at her as she stood back. 

“I didn’t run. You need better guards,” she said, matter-of-factly. She watched as Sansa paused for a moment as though she wanted to say something back, but she just smiled. Ever the graceful lady. 

“It suits you, Lady Stark. Jon left you in charge?” 

“He did,” Sansa nodded. Arya tried not to frown, she wanted to see his face so badly. 

“I hope he comes back soon. I remember how happy he was to see me, when he sees you, his heart will probably stop,” she smiled, genuinely. 

It was all she wanted in that moment. To see her brother, to have him wrap his arms around her, to finally be reunited with the only other misfit in the family who truly loved her for what she was. Even father hadn’t loved her the way Jon had. Arya looked back towards the statue of their father.

“It doesn’t look like him. Should have been carved by someone who knew his face,” she said solemnly. 

“Everyone that knew his face is dead,” Sansa muttered. 

“We’re not,” she said with a smile, turning back to her sister. “They say you killed Joffrey. Did you?”

“I wish I had,” Sansa said, turning back to her. 

“Me too,” Arya looked back at their father, the man the young, mad king had sentenced to death before her very eyes. “I was angry when I heard someone else had done it. However long my list got, he was always first.” 

“Your list?” 

“Of people I’m going to kill,” Arya said with cold finality. 

Sansa frowned and Arya realized she probably shouldn’t have said something so soon. There was an awkward silence between them before Sansa laughed as though she had been joking. But she wasn’t joking, she thought as she faked a laugh for her sister’s sake. 

“How did you get back to Winterfell?”

“It’s a long story. I imagine yours is too.”

“Yes,” Sansa frowned. “Not a very pleasant one.”

“Mine neither. But, our stories aren’t over yet,” Arya said, thinking about Beric’s fireside chats about divinity and purpose.

“No, they’re not.”

Arya still couldn’t believe her sister was standing in front of her. She rushed to her, wrapping her arms around her once more. 

“Arya…” Sansa pulled back, looking at her grimly. “Bran is home, too.”

The smile on her face couldn’t have gotten wider. Jon, Sansa and Bran were all alive—it was almost too much. But then she realized that Rickon hadn’t been mentioned and the look on Sansa’s face led her to believe something was wrong with Bran. 

 

* * *

“I saw you at the Crossroads,” Bran said as though he were telling her it was cold out. Like everyone knew she was at that inn, talking with Hot Pie.

“You saw me?” Arya’s brow knitted together in confusion. 

“I see quite a lot now.”

“Bran has… visions,” Sansa chimed in. 

“I thought you might go to King’s Landing.”

“So did I,” she said apprehensively. 

“Why would you go back there?” Sansa asked with a frown.

“Cersei’s on her list of names,” Bran stated. 

Arya stared in disbelief at her brother. How did he know about her list? 

“Who else is on your list?”

She turned to her sister. “Most of them are dead already.”

“But you ran into a ghost on your way home,” Bran said.

Arya turned back to him, still not sure how he knew all this. “I did.”

“He’s here, in Wintertown.”

“He is.”

“Who is here?” Sansa stepped forward, eyeing her sister. 

“The Hound,” Bran answered.

“You brought the _Hound_ to Winterfell? Arya, why?” Sansa’s thin brows furrowed. 

“Don’t call him that, the Hound is dead,” Arya snapped, shifting uncomfortably on her feet. “And you can ask him yourself why he’s here—it’s not for me, we just happened to run into each other as we were both heading north.”

“It is for you,” Bran added, his eyes vacant as Arya turned to him with an upturned brow. 

Sandor was on his way north before she had crossed paths with him. Though Beric had said he was still trying to convince him to continue with the Brotherhood when she met up with him. Perhaps he _had_ come north for her? No, there was no way he did it for her. He had said he wanted to get her to Winterfell safely, but that didn’t mean anything. Before Arya could ask what he meant, Bran unsheathed a beautifully made dagger. 

“Where did you get this?”

“Littlefinger gave it to me.”

“Littlefinger? He’s here? It’s an issue if I bring someone here, but Littlefinger is okay?” Arya turned to her sister, incredulous. 

“He’s declared for House Stark,” Sansa wrote her sister off. “Why did he give it to you?”

“He thought I’d want it.”

“Why?”

“It was meant to kill me.”

“The cutthroat,” Sansa surmised. “After your fall.”

“Why would a cutthroat have a Valyrian steel dagger?” Arya looked back and forth between her two siblings. 

“Someone very wealthy wanted me dead,” Bran said as he stared at the waves in the blade, the true mark that it was in fact Valyrian steel. 

Sansa shook her head, frowning. “He’s not a generous man, he wouldn’t give you anything unless he thought he was getting something back.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bran sheathed the blade and looked up at them.

“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” 

“I don’t want it,” he held it out towards Arya.

“Are you sure? It’s Valyrian steel,” she made a face. 

“It’s wasted on a cripple.”

Arya took the dagger, looking over its intricate sheath. It was an exquisite weapon, that much was for certain.

“Perhaps we should get you inside, Bran,” Sansa suggested, clutching her hands together in front of her.

Bran nodded and Arya moved behind him to turn him back towards the castle. As they walked through the yard, with the snow falling and the faint rustle of House Stark’s banners in the background, she finally felt at home. Then she noticed Brienne on the other side of the yard and looked over at Sansa with a frown. 

“What is she doing here?”

“She pledged herself to our safety,” Sansa motioned. “Why does it matter?”

“She killed the Hound,” Bran said quietly.

“I thought the Hound was at the tavern,” Sansa made a face. 

“ _Sandor Clegane_ is at the tavern. And I should go get him before the lot of them get too deep in their cups.”

Sansa sighed, taking Arya’s place behind Bran. “You won’t be long, will you? I’ll see to it that rooms are readied and a good meal is prepared in celebration of your return.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Arya protested.

“Nonsense,” Sansa waved her hand dismissively. “All surviving Stark children are finally within the walls of Winterfell once more, it’s more than cause for celebration, even a modest one. Go on, I’ll receive you and your guests in the Great Hall.” Sansa turned from her and headed inside with Bran.

_Not all Stark children_ , Arya thought as she walked towards the gates. How she ached for Jon to be here, to call her little sister, to ruffle her hair and watch proudly as she showed him how well she’d taken care of Needle. Soon enough, she would be reunited. She hoped.

For now, though, she needed the familiarity of another who knew her better than anyone within these walls. And a strong northern brew in her belly. Wrapping her tattered cloak tight around her shoulders, she passed the two guards who’d hassled her before and rolled her eyes as they bowed. This, however, was not a part of life at Winterfell she missed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of that dialogue was obviously taken from the show, so this was a quick-to-write chapter, we'll get into more interesting "off camera" things next chapter. :)


	8. Sandor IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor listens to Thoros' tall tales. Arya shows up in the middle of the night.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Smoking Log hadn’t changed much from the last time he’d been here, during Robert’s visit to Winterfell. The tavern was surprisingly busy for it being the middle of the day when a place such as this would only be occupied by travelers and drunks like the lot he traveled with. Despite the walk from the stable to where he stood now, his muscles strained painfully as he sat down on the wooden bench, aching from the ride. Nothing a few mugs of ale wouldn’t sooth.

The northern brew was strong and did the job so well that even Thoros forwent his usual drink of rum in favor of the ale. It took two horns before any of them spoke to each other, and another two before Thoros and Beric started yammering on again the lord of light and higher purposes and destiny. 

There was something peaceful and welcoming about being in the north, Sandor did note. He didn’t mind the cold as much when he wasn’t forced to exist in it for days— _weeks_ —on end. Northerners were an honest people, not preening and vapid like southerners. While he’d been born in the west, he wondered what life would be like in the north. Assuming the dead didn’t get past the wall some how and kill them all. A sharp twist in his gut caused him to make a face, as he thought about them breaching the walls of Winterfell as they marched south. 

“Ale too much for you, Clegane?” Thoros drawled, leaning across the table. The priest’s eyes were narrow slits as he squinted in Sandor’s direction. 

“Hardly,” he scoffed, taking another deep drink. 

“How long you think the Stark girl will be?” Thoros sat back and appraised him with a grin.

Sandor made a face and shrugged. “Fuck if I know. That’s why we’re waiting here instead of in the bloody cold.”

A rather flirtatious barmaid came by to refill their mugs. She was a busty thing, with hips that jutted out from her waist almost unnaturally. He’d been with a few whores in King’s Landing like this one, but always found them cumbersome and soft. Strong bodies were his preference—something that didn’t look like it would break under his power. She poured the drinks slowly, bending unnecessarily far over the table as she eyed Beric and Thoros, who were paying her no mind. Reluctantly, she turned towards him and he could see the now long-familiar combination of fear and disgust that flashed across their faces before they’d managed to pull their lips into a smile.

Even still, when it was clear he had no interest in her, the woman left with a frown. 

“That one was eyeing you, Clegane,” Thoros chuckled, tipping his mug in Sandor’s direction. The ale sloshed out onto the old wooden table.

“They never eye _me_ , they eye the coin in my pocket,” Sandor assured him as he took a drink of the fresh ale she’d put in front of him. _The coin I don’t have and wouldn’t waste anyhow._

“Surely you must have had some woman who wanted it not for the coin,” Beric mused, cocking his one visible brow in his direction. 

Sandor snorted at Beric’s brazen assumption. The ale was quickly loosening tongues it seemed. “You’d think wrong, Dondarrion.” 

“What do you think of the Stark girl?” Thoros turned towards Beric with a mischievous grin, looking at Sandor out of the corner of his eye.

“She’s grown up, that much is for certain,” Beric said plainly before taking a drink. 

“And you don’t find it… _interesting,_ ” Thoros leaned Sandor’s way as he let the word roll from his tongue, “that this _ferocious_ wolf and our beloved old dog would show up at our camp on the same day.”

“Aye, it is peculiar,” Beric agreed. Sandor was tired of this conversation, one the priest had anytime Arya wasn’t around. He left out a huff of annoyance in Thoros’ direction but it went unnoticed.

The priest leaned forward, pulling Beric in towards the center of the table, closer to Sandor. There was a devilish glint in his eye and his toothy grin was wide with mischief. 

“In Essos, it is believed that everyone is tied to someone else by an invisible string,” Thoros began raising his little finger in the air in front of him as though it were a specimen.

“The string might get tangled, contracted or stretched, as surely often happens, but it can _never_ break,” he continued, locking his finger to Beric’s and pulling roughly to prove his point. Sandor didn’t miss the look the two exchanged. “The two ends could be separated for years but some how the string would always bring the two back together.”

“You know what that connection is, _dog_?” The priest raised a scraggly red brow towards him. 

“Let me guess, _destiny_ ,” he shot them a dry look as he tipped his mug back a bit too quickly. The ale ran down his chin and with a curse he wiped his face with the back of his hand. 

Thoros snickered as he sat back with a smug look on his face. His brows rose high as he crossed his arms across his chest. Sandor waited impatiently for the priest to give him the right answer, since his was clearly wrong.

“Well, priest?” Sandor growled. 

A rush of cold air moved through the tavern, sending a chill up his arms. Sandor looked over to the door to see Arya walk in, brushing the snow from her shoulders as she scanned the patrons. She caught his eye and he could see the smallest hint of a smile as she made her way to their table. He didn’t realize the tension he’d been holding until he saw her.

“Soul mates,” Thoros answered.

Sandor let out a bark of a laugh as he watched the Stark girl weave through the tables towards them. She stopped a barmaid, the busty one, to get a mug of ale on her way, laughing with the woman like she was townsfolk. Arya always knew how to blend in.

“You don’t think certain things in life are just a little too strange and strong to simply be coincidences?” Beric coaxed. “That there can’t be a stronger link, a more permanent bond that holds two people together?” 

“I think it’s all horse shite,” Sandor rumbled as he took another drink, eyeing Arya as she sat down beside him. It wasn’t coincidence or fate or luck, it just _was_ , as far as he was concerned. Things didn’t happen for a reason, not in the way Beric and Thoros seemed to think.

“Well, Jon’s not here,” Arya mumbled into her mug as she settled in. 

“Then who’s keeping the place from burning down?” Sandor looked down at her, noting the life in her eyes and the flush in her cheeks that wasn’t there when he’d last seen her. Some deep part of him felt good that she was finally home—that after trying to get her to her family years ago, he’d finally succeeded in helping her.

“My sister, Sansa,” Arya eyed Sandor with a sly smirk. He blanched a little as he remembered what he’d said to her before she left him for dead in the Vale. He remembered the last conversation he’d had with the red head too. _Shit._

 

* * *

Sandor had been impressed by Arya’s ability to put away mugs of ale. But after the fifth one, when she’d started telling her own bawdy tales with the encouragement of Thoros, he figured it was time to head within the castle walls and get the whole thing over with. And his stomach had started growling the moment she mentioned a feast was being prepared for them. 

When last he’d been within the grey walls of Winterfell, it had been summer—as much of a summer as one could expect in the north. Now, however, a cloak was not optional and had it not been for the ale warming his belly, he’d have been cursing Lem’s thin cloak as they maneuvered through the courtyard. 

The great hall was dim as they entered, lit only by the grey light coming through the windows and the fire in the hearth behind the head table. There was a mess of people setting up tables and benches, pulling wood legs over stone with a screech that made him cringe. 

At the end of the room, he saw Sansa sitting with who he assumed was their cripple brother. She was most definitely no longer a girl, with her sharp features and proud stance. She had turned into a leader of a great house. Sandor was proud of her, having managed to get out of the clutches of Cersei and King’s Landing. Though, he was sure it was not as easy as riding north on summer roads. 

Beside Sansa stood a tall woman, one he’d almost mistaken for a man until he reached her face and recognition set in. Instinctively his hand went to the hilt of his sword and he felt a low growl rumble in the back of his throat as his lip twisted into a sneer. Brienne’s eyes widened measurably and he saw the dark haired boy beside her, who had been there that day in the Vale, turn to her in question. _Seven bloody hells._

“Don’t,” Arya said quietly, looking up at him. “Not now.”

Not now? Not now?! The bitch had tried to—almost did—kill him, and Arya wanted him to just put it aside like nothing happened? Sandor grit his teeth but didn’t move his hand from its place on his sword. He didn’t look away, not even as Sansa began to talk. 

“Sers, it’s my pleasure to welcome you all to Winterfell. My sincerest thanks for seeing that my sister returned home safely—”

“I would have gotten home safely without them,” Arya mumbled. 

Sansa shot her a stern look before continuing. “As a token of our gratitude, I’ve seen to it that you all have rooms within our walls. Unfortunately, due to the number of northern lords we’ve had to double up some of you, but I assure you the accommodations will be comfortable and most of all, warm.” 

“We’re most grateful for your hospitality, my lady, truly,” Thoros drawled, bowing slightly.

_All the northern houses are here, that would explain all the patrons in the tavern._

Sandor pulled his eyes from Brienne’s and did his best to give the little bird his attention. No, it wasn’t fair to call her that anymore. She was finally a wolf. But still a wolf that howled the right tunes, he thought with a smirk. Her songs had just gotten a bit more believable and complex, but they were still tunes he was familiar with.

“I’m sure you’re all tired from your journey, so I hope you’ll take leave to your rooms to rest and wash up before this evening’s prepared meal in honor of my sister’s safe return.” 

Servants moved to lead them out of the hall towards their rooms. 

“Ah, Clegane,” Sansa called out, her voice cracking a bit. He watched as her hands wrung slightly as she stood from her seat. “If I may have a word?” 

Sandor stopped reluctantly and watched as the rest of the Brotherhood left. Arya stopped at the doorway with her hand on the jamb, watching him intently. He nodded her off with the smallest hint of a knowing smirk beneath his thick beard. Sansa had dismissed Brienne and Podrick had pushed Bran out.

“Little bird has quite the nest,” he turned back to the eldest Stark daughter.

“It’s proper to call the head of the house ‘my lady’,” she said from her place at the fire, where she stared intently. 

“Fuck propriety,” Sandor grunted from the other side of the table. 

“I see you haven’t changed much,” she turned to him then, her look intense. 

“You need to open your eyes then.”

Sansa made a face as she placed her hands on the great table between them. After a moment of tense silence, she gave him the smallest smile. 

“You were kind to me,” she started, “in your own way, in King’s Landing. And I should have gone with you—”

“No, you shouldn’t have. Can’t say much for the decisions you have or have not made, but that was one of the smarter ones,” he thought grimly as he recalled his time after he’d fled. There was no way that Sansa would have survived the way her sister had, that much he knew for certain. 

“I suppose if I had, you never would have met my sister. She hasn’t had a chance to tell me of your journey together, but if she’s alive and well today, it must not have been so horrible.”

Sandor felt his leg ache as he thought about the fall down that hillside as he’d tried to protect Arya from the very woman who seemed to be protecting Sansa. 

“It was horrible, she’s just tough. Just as much bark as bite, that one,” he said with a proud smirk. 

Sansa regarded him for a moment, seemingly studying him. It made him uncomfortable. 

“Well, my sister seems fond of you—”

“Tolerates me, is more like it,” he interrupted. Fond was not a word he was keen on.

“Regardless, if she likes you, you are more than welcome here,” she said definitively. “While most of the men traveling with you are bunked up with another, I’ve seen to it that you’ve received a room alone as thanks for doing your best to see that Arya was safe during your time with her. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to check on the preparations for this evening’s meal.” 

With a diplomatic, tight smile, he watched as she left the hall, her heavy grey skirts swishing soundlessly as she went. 

Sandor sighed and made his way out, hoping to find someone to tell him where to go. He was not looking forward to being surrounded by noise and people this evening.

 

* * *

The feast had been loud, but the food made up for it. Mustard pork sweating with delicious, fatty juices, rose-water stewed plums, decadent pies stuffed with chicken, veal and stag—despite it being a small welcoming feast, it had been more food than he’d seen at once in a long time. Once he’d had his share of both food and drink, he’d seen himself out and had walked the yards with a skin of wine in hand. Winterfell was special at night, he had decided, when it was quiet and free of people. 

His room had been modestly appointed but none the less comfortable. A fire had burned long in the hearth and was low when he’d finally returned, quite deep in his cups, for the night. With the candles out and the shutters closed against the cold winds, he had fallen to the bed in a half-stupor.

_How am I so bleeding uncomfortable in a feather bed?_ It had been at least an hour since he’d laid down. He tossed and turned in the comfortable, warm bed trying to find the right position to finally fall asleep. Then he heard a soft knock at the door. 

It was a good excuse to get up, since he couldn’t sleep anyway. With a groaning creak, he pulled it open and looked down to see Arya standing there with a frown and her thick brows furrowed.

“What’s wrong, wolf-girl?” He stood in the doorway, watching in amusement as she looked up his naked upper half to his face. 

“I… uh—I can’t sleep,” Arya averted her eyes back to the floor. “The bed is too comfortable and the room’s too quiet,” she said as she picked at her sleeve. 

Sandor let out a soft, deep chuckle and moved out of the way to let her in. “Aye, can’t sleep m’self.” 

Arya was carrying a few furs from her own bed under her arm, which she tossed unceremoniously on the floor at her feet. In lieu of her typical cold-weather garb which hid her under layers of leathers, wools and furs, she was wearing a simple linen tunic and shorts for sleeping. It was probably the least amount of clothing he’d seen her in. She settled on the floor with her half-bare legs crossed at the ankle in front of her, her toes digging into the fur as she sighed in what Sandor could only guess was contentment. 

“What are you doing?” 

“I can’t sleep, I told you,” she repeated, brushing her hair out of her eye. 

“Aye… that doesn’t explain why you’re on my floor,” Sandor nodded to her place at his feet as he sat on the edge of his bed. 

She hadn’t taken her eyes off him since he’d moved from the door. It was unnerving and comforting at the same time, which only served to confuse him even further with Beric and Thoros’ constant prattling about destiny, and now soul mates. _What a mummer’s farce_. 

“I guess I’ve grown used to your snores,” she grinned up at him. “Can I sleep on the floor, in here?” 

It was innocent the way she asked; even the look on her face seemed almost childish as she made the request. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was inappropriate that they’d share a room together, what with a locked door and all. He supposed it wasn’t so bad, with her on the floor and him in the bed. Maybe not having another person near was why he couldn’t sleep either. It wasn’t like they hadn’t slept in the same bed, or even up against each other in the cold on the journey here. _It was innocent, that was all_ , he repeated to himself.

“Fine,” he acquiesced after a moment. “If you want a bigger fire, you’re gonna have to do it yourself.”

He hadn’t touched the hearth since entering the room and now the flames hung lazily along the embers. There was still enough warmth in the room, compared to… he couldn’t remember the last time he slept within warm walls. Sure he’d stumbled upon a hut here or there, but they were never comfortable, just barely better than the ground.

“It was too warm in my room; this is perfect,” she said quietly as she picked at the fur she sat on. 

_Perfect, what a ridiculous word._

“Do you want a pillow?”

Arya shook her head but didn’t look up at him. It was clear she wasn’t tired and any notion of sleep he had before she knocked was gone now. With a sigh, he slid to the floor with his own fur and leaned up against the side of the bed.

“What are you doing?” Arya glanced over at him in surprise.

“Keeping you company,” he said gruffly, intent on not explaining himself further. Even he wasn’t sure why he had joined her on the floor rather than laying back and trying to go to sleep.

She gave him a small smile and shifted to sit next to him, leaning back against the bed as she brought her knees to her chest. For awhile they sat there in silence staring at the dying embers across the room. It was a comfortable silence, not fraught with unnecessary conversation for the sake of filling dead air. Traveling together years ago, she hadn’t been this way and he was thankful she’d learned to shut up. 

“When are you leaving?” Her voice sounded sad. Why did she care if he left?

Sandor shrugged. “Beric and Thoros will want to get as much out of their stay as they can—a week, might be."

“You don’t have to go with them, you know,” she was still quiet as she squeezed her legs tighter to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. 

What place was there for him here? With a girl who’d left him for dead, the woman who’d tried to kill him, and the sister who didn’t trust him no matter the pretty words she said. It might be safer within the walls of Winterfell, but in a way, it was no warmer than going north of the wall.

“They are training so many people—boys, girls and women—who haven’t ever held a sword, I bet the Master at Arms would appreciate the help of someone like you.”

“Someone like me? Who’s good at chopping people up?” Sandor smirked down at her.

He grunted as she elbowed him in the side playfully before turning around to lay down on her back. “No, someone who is a knight in all but vows—who knows how to wield a variety of weapons,” she clarified as she stared up at the ceiling, her arms behind her head. “You could help these kids defend their homes.”

“Think Beric and Thoros had something a bit bigger in mind, heading north of the wall.” Unbidden, his eyes wandered to where her tunic had lifted as she’d put her hands behind her head, exposing part of her midriff. Sandor frowned as he noticed the angry scars surrounding her navel.

“What happened?” He nodded towards her stomach. 

“Braavos,” she said quietly, lowering her eyes from the ceiling to him. 

Sandor stretched out on the floor next to her. Already he was beginning to feel more at ease and comfortable, almost like it were any of the last month’s evenings. Arya turned to her side to face him, and after shuffling under her fur for a moment to get comfortable, began telling him about her time across the Narrow Sea. Perhaps she hadn’t learned to keep quiet, but he found himself okay with her stories this time. 

His intentions had been to return to his own bed once she’d fallen asleep, but that was not where he found himself come break of day.

 

* * *

 

 

[ ](https://wtflommy.deviantart.com/art/Red-String-of-Fate-719623018)  
_Red String of Fate_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clearly Thoros' story is taken from Chinese/Japanese myths about red strings of fate. I've always associated Arya + Sandor with this story, to the point where the cover art almost had a red string in it as well. :) 
> 
> \--
> 
> As always, leave comments and/or kudos! It's nice to hear from people who read, even if it's a quick comment.


	9. Arya V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya adjusts to life back in Winterfell.

 

 

* * *

 

Arya didn’t count herself as someone who was disoriented often. In fact, other than when she’d taken milk of the poppy at Lady Crane’s behest, she couldn’t remember the last time she had been confused upon waking. She wasn’t sure if it was the combination of the northern ale and winter wine she had indulged in the night prior, or being within familiar walls with family once more, but she felt warm and safe. And that was disorienting.

No, it wasn’t either of those things—she was being held. _Unexpectedly_ being held. She was comfortable and warm, and couldn’t hear the rustling of other travelers moving about as they started their morning. It was silent save for the distant braying of dogs. And the soft snoring behind her that had called her to this place to begin with.

She blinked her eyes a few times to rid them of sleep and scrunched her nose at the fur that tickled her nose. _That’s not fur, that’s an arm_. A strong, thick, hairy arm that had to be numb if she’d been using it as a pillow for any length of time. The other arm was loosely around her middle, she noticed, since she was holding onto it. It dwarfed her own.

Arya made a face as she remembered the previous day. It had been such a relief, albeit an awkward one, finally being reunited with her sister and her brother. She’d been disappointed and frustrated that Jon hadn’t been here. No, Jon had gone off to convince the dragon queen to help their cause — the same cause as Sandor and the Brotherhood, it would seem.

_Sandor_. There was a flutter in her stomach.

She recalled the tedious, loud feast with a procession of northern lords continuously interrupting her reunion with her siblings—not that Bran had been much for conversation. They had eyed her in such a way that she wondered which lord would introduce her to an eligible son first. When she’d managed to get a reprieve and look across the vibrant, bustling hall for Sandor, she saw him no where in sight. She had been confused by the twist of unbidden fear in her gut that he had gone for good and she’d excused herself early to find him, to no avail. 

Reluctantly, she’d returned to her room and had been unable to fall asleep: the bed had been too soft and the room too warm for her to get comfortable. Arya wasn’t sure what had compelled her to grab the bundle of furs from her bed before she snuck down the hallway, or why she had stuck to the shadows in the first place. Habit, she supposed. 

She had stood in front of his door for a few minutes, listening to the faint sounds of his cursing and rustling linens as he’d tried to get comfortable as well. When he’d opened the door to her soft knock, she had been taken aback by the great expanse of chest that greeted her. Arya found herself wanting to put her fingers in the dark hair that dusted up to his neck and down below the hem of his breeches. She’d quickly averted her eyes after that. 

Happy wasn’t a word she used often; she didn’t have reason to. But lying there on the floor, still buzzed from dinner, with him at her side as she told stories of her time in Braavos, it had been a nice change of pace from mere survival since she’d come back across the Narrow Sea. She had fallen asleep on his floor, curled beneath her furs, as he had drunkenly told her stories of his past. He _never_ talked about his past.

Now it was break of day and while she had awoken many times over the last month of travel next to him, there was something very different about being home, behind a closed door, in the same position. An increasingly familiar and still just as perplexing flush burned her skin and caused a place low in her belly to ache as she looked down at the strong arm around her. Sandor was the only man to have ever held her other than family, and even then, not like this. Arya couldn’t speak to his intentions, but if she leaned back ever so slightly until his broad, strong chest was against her shoulder blade, his thick arm tightened involuntarily around her and the ache grew stronger. 

Arya furrowed her brow. She knew she should remove herself from his embrace, but she didn’t _want_ to. And that confused her. The ache wasn’t just low in her belly, it was in her heart—her soul, she thought as she made a face. With practiced ears, she had overheard the end of the conversation Beric, Thoros and Sandor were having. 

_“You don’t think certain things in life are just a little too strange and strong to simply be coincidences?”_

Sandor had said it was horse shit, but Arya wasn’t sure she agreed. It couldn’t be mere coincidence that in all of Westeros and all of time, they would run into each other as both of them were heading north. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that she’d get stuck with the man who’d murdered her friend as a child, being forced to be in his presence and learn that he too was a person and things were rarely black and white. Arya mourned for Mycah, but had long ago buried that memory. And it couldn’t have been coincidence that they’d ended up at the farmer’s house, where the two of them were able to lay to rest its former residents, giving her a glimpse into the man that the Hound had become once more: Sandor Clegane. 

The Hound. That was the man everyone knew him as. Was she truly the only one who knew he was more than that? Surely, that couldn’t be the case. And yet as she’d watched the recognition blossom on the passing faces as they’d walked through the bailey, it had been clear even in the north they knew of the treacherous things the Mad Dog had done.

Part of Arya wanted to find a way to show them he had changed, but other than their interactions, what was there to speak of? He’d all but given his life for her safety, but it was known throughout the countryside that it had been a ransom for her name. However, she knew it to be more than that, especially the longer they were together. They had come to care for each other, at least she believed. Neither had been particularly good at those sort of things, so perhaps she’d never truly know. 

But now, she laid here, in the arms of… her friend? Companion? Putting it into words made her stomach knot—none of those words felt wrong _or_ right. 

Arya was pulled from her thoughts when a frantic, loud knock at the door startled her. Sandor grumbled as he was awoken and she felt him tense in what she could only assume was the realization of their position.

“Clegane? Clegane!” 

_Sansa?_ Arya turned to Sandor as they both sat up. Her eyes involuntarily went down to his bare chest and she felt her cheeks flush. What the hell was wrong with her?

“Clegane, my apologies for disturbing you. I cannot find Arya. Are you even in there?” Sansa called through the door. The handle rattled as she tried to enter. 

Sandor looked around at their current situation before raising a brow in her direction. Arya felt that increasingly familiar flutter. This was going to be annoying to explain.

“Morning, wolf-girl,” his voice was gravelly from a night of drinking. He had a rueful, almost boyish grin beneath his thick beard. Sandor didn’t smile much, but she had noticed he did around her and that only caused the ache to grow deeper. _Seven hells._

Arya heard her sister sigh loudly in exasperation before knocking again, louder.

“Bloody hell, woman,” Sandor groaned as he stood. 

Arya scrambled to her feet to cut him off at the door. She felt a charge of energy between them as she grabbed his wrist to pull him to a stop. Sandor’s warm, brown eyes looked upon her hand on his arm for a moment before meeting her gaze. Arya bit her lip as she swallowed the lump in her throat, grabbing the handle of the door with her other hand. Blinking herself away from the charged glance, she jerked her head away from the door, signaling him back. 

With a creak and a resigned sigh, Arya opened the door, bracing herself.

“What?” She rose her thick brows in annoyance.

Sansa blinked, confused. She looked behind her sister to where Sandor stood, shirtless. This looked really bad, Arya realized. 

“I could ask the same,” Sansa frowned as she pressed an invisible wrinkle out of her skirts as though she was trying to occupy her attention anywhere but the scene before her. She didn’t miss her sister looking down at the floor where the mess of furs were, though.

Arya sighed, combing her fingers through her likely disheveled head of hair. She shot Sandor an apologetic, sheepish grin before sliding out the door, pulling it shut with a hollow thud and moving past her sister into the hallway. 

“What was _that_?” Sansa demanded quietly as she stepped briskly after her sister. “You shouldn’t be walking the halls like this.”

Arya could see her sister’s judging look from the corner of her eye. “ _That_ was nothing, and I didn’t intend to walk down the halls in daylight like this,” she grumbled as she looked down at her wrinkled sleeping linens. 

“What were you doing in the Hound’s chambers—”

“Don’t call him that,” Arya snapped as she arrived at her room. She couldn’t see it, but she knew Sansa was rolling her eyes. 

Her chambers were bone cold, the opposite of how they were mere hours ago. Arya eyed the open window that she’d forgotten to close when she had been desperate to cool the room down. Sansa huffed from behind her, crossing her arms. 

“I couldn’t sleep, so I went to check how he was settling,” Arya only half lied. 

“And you stayed?” She heard the judgement in her tone.

“Yes, we were talking and I fell asleep.” Arya let out an exasperated groan.

On her bed were a pair of leather trousers and a dusty blue tunic, folded neatly. She ran her fingers over the clean fabric. “What’s this?” 

Sansa made a face. “You didn’t think I’d let you walk around in those smelly rags, did you? You’re a Stark of Winterfell, you’ll dress like one now that you’re home. The tunic and pants are nothing special, already made, but I’d like you to visit the tailor today so they can get your measurements.”

“This is really unnecessary,” Arya shot her sister a wry glance as she pulled the tunic on. 

“It’s not, and I’ll hear no more of it.”

 

* * *

Arya leaned against a post on the gallery that overlooked the main yard, her arms folded over her chest. She watched as Sandor chatted with the armorer below. Over the week that he’d been here, they had spent the majority of their time together, when she wasn’t reacquainting herself with Winterfell and all the trappings of that life. It had been nice to take a breath between preparations for whatever was next to slowly enjoy things—riding through the Wolfswood, talking with townsfolk at the Smoking Log, watching the stars twinkle and dance during clear nights with a skin of wine in hand. 

They talked about what had happened since they were separated, what they thought the army of the dead was truly after, what they would do if they ever got to King’s Landing, even what would happen after everything settled, if it ever did. Sometimes they simply sat in silence, lost in their own thoughts in each other’s company. Arya wondered if Sandor hated being left with his thoughts as much as she did. 

The Brotherhood had decided to stay longer than a week to better prepare and Arya couldn’t say she was disappointed. It was odd being in a familiar place but knowing there was only one person in the world who understood her, and he would be leaving soon enough. There was an undeniable pull towards him and she found herself lying awake at night, listening to his snoring when they’d fallen asleep in the same room, wondering what it all meant. Her confusing, growing attraction to him didn’t make things any easier.

“I haven’t had the chance to properly welcome you home to Winterfell, my lady,” a drawling voice called from behind her. 

Looking over her shoulder, she groaned inwardly as Littlefinger made his way towards her. The man was slippery as an eel, no different than when she’d first met him in King’s Landing or when she’d encountered him at Harrenhal. Arya couldn’t put her finger on it just yet, but she was growing increasingly suspicious of him and his presence in Winterfell. 

“I’m not a lady,” she mumbled coldly, turning back to the yard. 

“Oh, but I beg to differ. Are you not the child of Ned and Catelyn Stark? Perhaps the Faceless Men have sent an imposter,” Petyr smiled slyly as he joined her along the rail, looking down at what she was watching. She heard a low hum in his throat as he noticed she was looking at Sandor.

“How do you know about that?” Arya made a face, but didn’t move. 

“I’m a purveyor of information, my dear, it’s my job to know things I’m not supposed to know. Like how the Frey’s were taken down single-handedly,” Littlefinger’s shifty black eyes looked her over. 

“One thing that _has_ left me perplexed, I’m disappointed to admit,” he looked down at Sandor. “…is your relationship with the Hound. Being in King’s Landing for quite some time, I’m very familiar with the man he is—”

“Was.”

“ _Was._ So imagine my surprise when the two of you show up _together_ at Winterfell’s gates. I know he had you captive for ransom until Lady Brienne bested him in the Eyrie. What possible reason would you have for being there?”

“We were trying to get to Aunt Lysa,” Arya said coldly, growing impatient with the man’s talking.

“Ah yes, my sincerest condolences, my lady. Your sister and I did our best to help her, but I’m afraid—”

“What?”

Littlefinger gave her a suspicious look, raising a brow. “Oh yes, your sister and I were there when she fell to her death. Terribly tragic.”

“How long after her death?” Arya turned to him, suddenly interested.

“At least a fortnight, if I recall,” he mused. 

Arya turned back to the yard and noticed Sandor was no longer at the armorer. Had they really been that close to her sister? She shook her head, frustrated. They should have pressed for entry more, but Sandor had been almost delirious at that point and had angrily insisted they turn back. 

“Is everything okay, my lady—”

“Stop calling me that,” she snapped, glaring at him. “I-I’ve got to go.” Arya met his gaze warily before turning to head back inside. 

 

* * *

“We got quite lucky, my lady—”

“Arya, is fine,” she muttered as she finished tying the cord on the leather doublet she had put on.

“Yes, my la— Arya,” the garment maker nodded, bowing his head slightly. “We got quite lucky—Lady Sansa had requested all armor be covered in leather so we had a large amount tanned and ready for use.”

Arya stared at herself in the mercury glass mirror in front of her, pulling and adjusting on the blue quilted gambeson before grabbing the sword belt. 

“It’s beautiful work, Garin. Thank you so much,” she smiled at the man, who nodded and saw himself out.

Having adjusted the sword belt, she placed the dagger in its intricate leather sheath with a satisfying _clack_ and picked Needle up off the table to do the same. Arya caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and froze, feeling a lump form in her throat. Sansa had picked out materials and sewing patterns that mimicked their father’s style. Warm browns and dusty blues—if she squinted her eyes, she looked just like him, with her hair pulled back as it were. Her hand involuntarily reached out towards the mirror, as though she could touch her father once more: to hug him and feel his comforting embrace, to tell him she loved him and that she was sorry for not doing more to try and save him. She felt wetness gathering in the corner of her eyes. Gods, she missed him something fierce.

There was knock at the door that pulled her from her thoughts. “Uh, c-come in.”

Sandor pushed the door open with a creak and closed it behind himself gently, his perpetual scowl softening slightly as he caught her eye.

“Wolf girl,” he greeted, his tone gruff but warm.

“Better than a stinkin’ gutter rat, eh?” She looked down at herself with a smirk.

Sandor crossed his arms over his broad chest and looked down his nose at her, appraising her in jest. Arya felt suddenly self-conscious under his scrutinizing gaze. She sheathed Needle and turned back to the mirror, adjusting the belt.

She ran her fingers over the stitching on the doublet, as she remembered her father’s encouraging gaze whenever she held a bow in the yard. The quilting on her sleeve was soft, like his beard when it rubbed against her cheek as he hugged her tightly. Looking down at the brown leather boots, tight and fresh around her feet, she remembered when he introduced her to Syrio; as he watched her with pride as she practiced her water-dancing. The gloves tucked into her belt reminded her of watching her father on horseback, clutching the reins tightly as he galloped through the gate, coming back from a hunt, always with a surprise from the Wolfswood for her. She had displayed them proudly along the mantle of the fireplace in her room: antlers, interesting leaves and rocks, dead beetles. Always little treasures to remember him by.

Tears fell unbidden from her eyes as she bit her lip, looking up from her outfit. Arya noticed Sandor staring at her with a frown in the reflection of the mirror. Sniffing, she wiped her reddening cheeks and turned to him. 

“What?” Arya waited for the inevitable verbal jab at the girlish tears running down her face.

Sandor stood silent for a moment, looking her over. She fidgeted with the buckles on her belt anxiously, searching the warm, brown eyes that she’d come to find the most comforting thing in her life as of late. After a longer pause than Arya was comfortable with, he spoke up, his voice cracking with remorse.

“You look just like your father,” he said with a somber smile.


	10. Sandor V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor struggles with the decision to leave Winterfell as Arya tries to convince him to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I was ready to die for you, baby_   
>  _Doesn't mean I'm ready to stay_   
>  _What good is livin' a life you've been given_   
>  _If all you do is stand in one place_   
>  _\- Ends of the Earth, Lord Huron_

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sandor had to admit, the snow falling around Winterfell was something to behold; almost magical. As he stood on the parapets, watching the snow drift heavily but lazily to the grey surfaces around him, he thought about what life was going to be like during the long winter. Summer had lasted for ten years and it was well known amongst the smallfolk that a long summer meant a long winter. He’d experienced winters before, though each only lasted a few months to a year at most, never as long as the latest summer. Though he didn’t pray to any gods, he found himself silently hoping for a short winter.

He kept a safe distance from the brazier that warmed the awning he stood beneath. If anything, his relationship with fire had grown more wary after the visions in the flames at the farmer’s house. Sandor didn’t know what they needed to do when they continued north, but it was a chance for him to begin redeeming himself for so many blood-stained years of blind servitude to the Lannisters. 

Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice Arya until she came under the awning, snow laying on her head like a halo. She brushed her shoulders off and moved close to the brazier, warming her hands. Her cheeks were flush from the cold, her lips pink. 

“Didn’t expect to find you up here,” she commented, rubbing her gloved hands together. 

“Didn’t know you were looking for me,” he answered back, watching her breath cloud in front of her as she blew on her cold fingers.

“Why wouldn’t I look for you?” Her grey eyes were bright as they looked up at him, sending a shiver down his spine.

Sandor let out a low, gruff chuckle. “Don’t know what reason you’d have for looking for me to begin with.” He stepped closer to the brazier. 

Arya didn’t take her eyes off him. “I don’t want you to leave,” she admitted after a moment. 

He watched her for a time, his eyes squinting ever so slightly as though he were trying to figure her out. No one wanted him around without reason.

“We’ve talked about this; Winterfell isn’t where I’m to be,” Sandor sighed, looking out past the snow towards the Wolfswood beyond the stone walls.

“Who’s to say that? Beric? Thoros? The _flames?_ ” she mocked, a smirk played at the corner of her lips. 

Sandor frowned down at her. “I’ve spent enough time listening to other people. My gut says this is where I’m supposed to go, with them.” 

“Maybe your gut is wrong,” Arya muttered, looking down at the flames. 

Sandor contemplated her words as he watched the snow slowly begin to dissipate. He wasn’t sure how long they stood there in companionable silence, like they often did these days, but he knew he’d miss it once the Brotherhood continued their trek north. What if he did stay here, how much would that really change what Thoros and Beric wanted to do? Hell, they didn’t even know _why_ they were going north, save this calling to go to the army of the dead. It seemed like a miserable prospect, especially considering the alternative. But at the end of the day, he didn’t need to be remembered as the vicious dog who slept at the feet of both lions and wolves. 

“I hate that people still call you the Hound,” Arya said, as though she were reading his mind. She made a face as she stared into the flames.

“Why?” Sandor scoffed. “It’s what I am to them.”

“Who you _were_ ,” she snapped, looking up at him, a ferocity in her grey eyes. It was the only fire he found himself fond of. “I wish I could show them that’s not you.”

“What do you know of it, girl?” he grunted, his brow furrowing. 

“I know plenty!” She turned to him, her fisted hands on her hips, an indignant expression upon her face. “You took care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself, protected me from men who would have raped me and left me to die in a ditch, made sure I didn’t go _too_ hungry. Sure, you had your own way of going about it, but you were there for me. You could have left me on my own after we left the Eyrie, but you stayed with me—you tried to protect me when Brienne tried to take me.” 

Arya had moved closer to him, no more than a couple feet, her face reddening as she worked herself up. Sandor felt a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth— _Arya Stark, temperamental as ever, even if you try to hide it._

“And after I left you for dead, without the mercy of a quick death, here you _still_ are, with me, in Winterfell. There’s something to that, I think—something left for Sandor Clegane to be, and I don’t think it’s freezing to death north of the Wall,” her voice had gotten quiet, her face turned down to the ground as she crossed her arms over her chest.

_“What matters, I believe, is that there’s something greater than us. Whatever it is, it’s got plans for Sandor Clegane,” Brother Ray had told him._

She looked up suddenly, anger apparent on her round face. “And if I see one more person give you a dirty look, or call you the Hound, I swear to the Seven—”

Overwhelmed with a desire to both shut her up and have her near, Sandor pulled Arya to him, wrapping his large arms around her narrow shoulders. Arya’s hands went up instinctively in defense, only to get trapped between their bodies. She grunted as she tried to free herself.

“What are you—”

“Just shut up, girl,” Sandor mumbled. “It don’t much matter to me what they say or think. You think I haven’t been hearing it and seeing it all these years?”

Arya looked up at him, still crushed between his chest and arms. Her cheeks were flush, no longer from the cold and he could see the different shades of grey in her eyes. They’d slept close to each other; he’d even held her as they slept on a few occasions for extra warmth, but other than when she’d put her arms around him back at the farmer’s house, they hadn’t shared any intentional contact that hadn’t been strictly for their own wellbeing; much less him initiating it.

And Sandor didn’t _want_ to break the contact; she felt familiar, the one person who looked past the surface, past the angry barking to who he was. They’d stayed up many a night since arriving at Winterfell talking of hopes and fears, both of the past and going into this new chapter in history.

“It doesn’t make it right,” she said softly as she wriggled her arms free from between them to snake them around his waist.

He let out a quiet, deep chuckle. “No, it doesn’t make it right, but since when is anything right?”

“This feels right,” he heard her say, barely audible and hesitantly as though she weren’t sure it were true. She laid her cheek against his warm, broad chest.

“Right at the wrong time, might be,” Sandor said as he looked out over the Wolfswood, one hand going up to clasp her head close. Arya’s arms tightened around him and he felt a familiar twisting feeling in his gut. His purpose was not to keep her safe, to keep her company; it couldn’t be all it was. 

 

* * *

“And what, exactly, are we going to do when we get to this big fucking Wall?” Sandor grumbled before taking a drink from the horn of warm ale in front of him.

“The Lord of Light will guide the way,” Beric said resolutely. Sandor rolled his eyes. 

“He goin’ to burn us a hole through the fucking thing? Carve out some stairs?”

“His way will become clear when it’s time,” the one-eyed man said solemnly as he chewed on a piece of hard bread.

“That’s horse shite. Be nice to know what we’re getting into before we freeze our balls off trying to get over the bloody thing.”

“You have an awful lot of questions, Clegane. Reconsidering joining us?” Thoros leaned towards him from the other side of the table. 

Sandor made a face and gave a non-comital grunt as his eyes roamed the tavern, as though her mousey head and grey eyes would stand out in the crowd of people. She wasn’t there anyhow, he thought, so it mattered little.

“It’s the girl, isn’t it?” Thoros prodded, as he looked over at Beric with a sly look. 

“Bugger off, priest,” Sandor growled as he took a deep drink, emptying his mug. 

He heard Thoros’ low chuckle and wanted to reach across to strangle it from his throat.

“Might it be you’ve given our words some thought,” the red priest kept pressing.

Sandor stood suddenly, knocking the bench he sat on backwards with a loud clatter. The tavern went silent for a moment as patrons turned to see him leaning forward over the table, his balled fists on its sticky surface. He shot the room a dark look and everyone turned back to their conversations hesitantly. Grabbing Thoros’ mug, he gulped it down quickly before doing the same with Beric’s. 

“Bunch of nances,” he grumbled before leaving the two smirking men behind. 

 

* * *

A few days later, Sandor stood talking with Beric and Thoros, making plans along the edge of the training yard as Brienne attempted to show Podrick his way around a sword. Their reunion had been awkward as Brienne formed words to express why she did what she did, and Sandor did his best to let the past be the past. In the end, they both realized they were trying to achieve the same thing: protect her. On that account, both had failed her.

For the fourth—maybe fifth—time, Podrick found himself face first in the dirt, as Brienne barked off another lesson. 

“Don’t lunge,” she instructed as Podrick picked himself up, dusting off his knees. Brienne stepped back and Podrick came at her as she intended, her foot swiftly knocking him to his back.

“Don’t go where your enemy leads you.” Up once more. And down again, with a punch to the stomach. 

“And don’t—”

“Don’t fight someone like her in the first place,” he heard a familiar voice and turned to see Arya walking into the courtyard, her hands clasped behind her back and her face void of emotion. 

Sandor watched as Arya greeted the tall woman, removing the intricate dagger from its sheath and flipping it in her hand a few times before handing it to her. He had seen less of Arya in the last few days and when he did see her she seemed distracted, distant, focused on something else that she wasn’t ready to tell him about.

“It’s been awhile since I trained,” he heard her say.

“I can go find the Master of Arms for you, my lady.”

Arya looked over at where Sandor stood, a devilish glint in her eyes, before turning back to Brienne.

“He didn’t beat the Hound. You did,” she said coolly. “I want to train with you.” 

Sandor made a face and wanted to protest, but also wanted to see what she could do to the tall woman. Brienne of fucking Tarth could use an ass-kicking. 

He watched as they took stances, Brienne objecting to Arya’s use of her rapier and the shorter woman smirking and promising not to cut her. Brienne obliged reluctantly and moved back, raising her sword. 

The dichotomy between a tall, armored warrior with a large, albeit dull, sword and this small, lithe assassin with her thin blade was captivating. Sandor watched with morbid fascination as Arya deftly avoided Brienne’s first swings with an almost smug ease. The way she moved the sword as though it were an extension of her own arm made him realize all her many hours spent practicing her water dancing hadn’t been for naught. 

Brienne began getting annoyed at how easily Arya was avoiding her moves and came at her hard, but Arya swept sideways and low, dodging her with calculated grace. He found his breath hitch in his throat as Brienne swung at her neck, but Arya just tipped backwards as though gravity were not a thing. Arya came at Brienne, one hand behind her back, parrying her movements as they danced across the yard until finally she knocked Brienne in the hand.

Arya twisted her little sword in her hand and returned it to its place behind her back. Sandor could tell Brienne was no longer going to hold back simply because she was a _lady_ , but spar with her as though she were any other capable partner in the yard. The odd clang of dull steel with the smallness of Arya’s blade hung in his ear as they moved back and forth, Arya sliding under Brienne and knocking her in the shin. Sandor found himself grinning as he watched.

“Distracted, are you, Clegane?” Thoros smirked.

“Fuck off,” he growled, his face dropping but he did not take his eyes off her as she landed another hit to Brienne. Sandor did feel a stirring as he watched her move with such strong grace, but he’d never let on.

Just then, Brienne let out a yell and lifted her leg, firmly kicking Arya in the chest. Sandor tensed as she hit the ground with a heavy thud. She laid there for a moment, her chest heaving and Sandor couldn’t help but recall his lesson to her.

_Your friend’s dead, and Meryn Trant’s not. ‘Cause Trant had armor and a big fucking sword._

But Arya wasn’t finished. She looked up at Brienne with fire in her eyes and a dark grin pulling at her lips before swinging her feet and flipping up to crouch, Needle spinning with added flair as she balanced herself. It seemed an eternity that Arya and Brienne stared at each other, but in fact it was only seconds before Brienne came at her again.

They danced across the yard once more, Brienne putting all her force behind her swings, and Arya parrying with surprisingly just as much force. One strike, two, and on the third Needle was knocked from Arya’s grasp and Sandor was sure the match had ended as Arya froze, staring at Brienne, her lip curled. Brienne’s sword rose for a final blow and Arya dodged it, pulling the dagger from her hip in defense. As Brienne grabbed her wrist to disarm her, Arya tossed the dagger to her left, dominant hand and brought it up to the tall woman’s neck just as she brought her sword down to Arya’s face. 

They froze, panting and grinning, blades to each other’s necks before silently calling it a draw. 

“Who taught you to do that?” 

“No one,” Arya said, looking up with an impish grin before collecting her small sword. 

Sandor followed Arya’s gaze as she looked up to the gallery above the yard, where Sansa and Littlefinger stood watch. After a moment, when both of them had left, Arya stalked off in the direction of the stables. 

The Winterfell stables were decent in size, with two long halls flanked by wooden stalls. They weren’t nearly the size of King’s Landing’s stables, but were adequate despite the increased number of people from across the North who were currently staying at the castle. The smell of manure and damp straw was strong, but he cared little. He found her about half way down, grunting as she lifted a saddle onto her grey dapple mare.

“Well fought,” he said as he approached her at one of the stalls, readying a horse. “Where are you going?”

“For a ride, I need to clear my head, think a bit,” Arya said without looking back at him. 

Sandor came up beside her, rubbing the horse’s soft grey muzzle as she adjusted the saddle. She was focused, her brow furrowed and her small hands making quick work of the straps and buckles. 

“What’s going on? You’ve been unusually quiet as of late.”

“I don’t trust Littlefinger,” she muttered, not looking up. 

Sandor scoffed. “Only a fool would trust him.”

Arya paused, one hand on the saddle as she turned to look up at him. “He’s talking to some of the Northern lords behind Sansa’s back.” She chewed on her lip and Sandor found himself staring. 

He cleared his throat, stepping back from the horse, and her. “What are you going to do about it?”

Arya fussed with the saddle once more. “Follow him around awhile longer, see what he’s up to,” she looked over her shoulder at him. “Kill him."

Sandor snorted, but Arya kept a straight face. “You’re not joking…”

She turned to him, her lips in a tight, grim line. “I’m home, for the first time in years. There’s a rat here, with his claws dug deep into my sister. And now he’s talking behind her back? It’s bad enough some of the Northern lords are already threatening to return to their homes, last thing Jon needs to return to is Littlefinger in charge.”

“Just be careful.”

“I can handle myself—you’ll be long gone, anyhow,” her tone was bitter as she moved to adjust the bridle on her mare. Her words stung.

“Girl…” She ignored him.

“Arya,” he growled, grabbing her slender wrist. “Look at me. _Look_.”

When she looked up, he could see there was a betraying wetness in the corner of her eyes. Sandor let go of her wrist and hesitantly cupped her cheek, his brow furrowing. She didn’t pull away, and in fact he thought she leaned into it ever so slightly.

“You really don’t want me to go?”

“I don’t,” she said quietly, watching him with hooded grey eyes.

“You don’t want me around, girl—don’t need me around,” he admonished.

“Maybe I do,” she whispered.


	11. Arya VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya begins playing the game and struggles with her feelings for Sandor as his departure looms closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _When the night was full of terrors_  
>  _And your eyes were filled with tears_  
>  _When you had not touched me yet_  
>  _Oh, take me back to the night we met_  
>     
>  _I had all and then most of you_  
>  _Some and now none of you_  
>  _Take me back to the night we met_  
>  _I don't know what I'm supposed to do_  
>  _Haunted by the ghost of you_  
>  _Take me back to the night we met_  
>  _—The Night We Met, Lord Huron_

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

The godswood was quiet, which was exactly how Arya liked it. Most mornings, before the castle had stirred, Arya made her way to the sacred forest to run through the routine she’d had since she was twelve. The movements she went through now were much more advanced than those of her childhood, complete with complex somersaults and the use of more than just Needle, but she found herself pausing to remember Syrio and his lessons all the same. 

_Swift as a deer._

It was a time for her to clear her head, to think without interruption. Since arriving back in Winterfell, she’d kept her distance from everyone except her brother—who was hardly company at all—and Sandor, as she reevaluated her home and those around her. 

_Quiet as a shadow._

Whether it was thinking about how to handle Littlefinger’s deep-seeded interest in her sister, what she could do for her shell of a brother, or when she might see Jon again, Arya came here and thought about it. Once she’d ran through her routine a few times, she would sit beneath the heart tree, one hand deep in the soft white fur of Ghost, who would patiently lay beside her as he waited for Jon to return. Arya ran through the things that weighed heavy on her mind. Heaviest of all: Sandor Clegane. 

_Calm as still water._

She had fought the urge—the ridiculous carnal need—she felt deep in her gut for weeks as they sat beside each other during dinners, listening in on councils with the Northern lords, standing along the galleries above the yards watching the bustle of activity below, and most of all, as they sat on the floor of his bedchambers, a skin of wine between them, the fire burning low behind her as they talked about everything and nothing at all. Some nights they would just lay there on the floor in silence, together. When he had told her he was staying for a bit longer, Arya had been hopeful it would turn into even longer—and longer still. It had been almost a full moon that the Brotherhood had stayed within Winterfell’s walls and she knew any moment he would come to her to say goodbye. Or worse yet, he would leave without saying a word. 

_Fear cuts deeper than swords._

How in the seven hells she came to desire the company of Sandor Clegane still perplexed her, but she truly did care for him. The idea of him leaving to go north into certain death for a cause unknown seemed foolish, when he could do just as much good—if not more—here in Winterfell. They needed capable, strong men within the castle walls just as much as anywhere, but she had been unable to convince him thus far to stay. 

_Strong as a bear._

Arya tried her hardest to be ruthless, to not care about what he did, for caring only caused pain; but being home was slowly warming her cold, hardened heart. And that was nothing compared to the _other_ warmth she found herself experiencing as she explored what it meant to have a man so close to her. The way he had pulled her close as they stood on the wall while the snow fell had warmed her in more ways than one, and she’d had to force herself to not lean closer when he held her face in the stables. She’d betrayed herself anyway, with those tears and her bold admission. Arya could still feel his calloused thumb as it brushed her cheek _ever so slightly,_ and she had watched his lips and wondered what would happen if she just leaned forward _…_ Gods, she was going mad letting these thoughts consume her. 

_Fierce as a wolverine._

Arya shook her head, coming to her feet beneath the heart tree as it rustled in the light breeze. A bright red leaf drifted down to the frozen pool in front of her. She needed to focus on the important task at hand: better understanding Littlefinger’s manipulation of Sansa and just how deep into her his claws truly were. Her training with the Faceless Men had prepared her for this: to go stealth, to make it seem as though she were falling into his trap and was nothing more than a silly, hotheaded girl who didn’t trust her own sister. Arya knew that in order to figure Littlefinger out, she had to play his game better than him. 

_The man who fears losing has already lost._

It was late enough in the morning that Sansa would be finished breaking her fast and would be heading to the Great Hall to await the daily influx of lords and ladies who wished to discuss matters with the Lady of Winterfell. Arya would start there.

_Fear cuts deeper than swords. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Fear cuts deeper than swords._

 

* * *

“The King in the North, should stay in the North,” she heard as she made her way into the Great Hall, hands tucked behind her. 

“We did not choose you to rule us, my Lady, but perhaps we should have,” Lord Glover continued, to a round of approving grumbles. 

“The Knights of the Vale came here for _you_ , Lady Stark,” Yohn Royce said as he came to his feet. 

Arya watched Sansa intently from the back of the crowded room. She sat silently, regally, not attempting to defend her brother, their King, in any manner. One gloved hand involuntarily fingered the pommel of Needle as she continued to listen.

“You’re very kind, my Lords, but Jon is our King. He’s doing what he thinks is best,” Sansa sighed, attempting to placate them. 

As the men mumbled amongst themselves, she caught her sister’s eye through the crowd. Arya watched closely, trying to read her sister. Why would she let them talk about Jon that way? Did _she_ want to be Queen in the North, was that why? No. _Littlefinger_ wanted her to be Queen in the North, and Sansa was simply a pawn in his game. Well, Arya would play his little game too.

The hall was dark and damp as they made their way from the Great Hall to the Great Keep. Torches flickered gently in the faint draft of paned windows. 

“I warned Jon this would happen—that he couldn’t leave the North and expect it to just sit and wait for him like Ghost,” Sansa said as she walked briskly down the hall. 

“He didn’t. He trusted _you_ to hold it for him,” Arya posited, following closely beside her as they rounded a corner.

“Well he’s not making it easy. The Northern lords are proud.” 

Sansa walked into a room Arya had not been in since she was a child. When her family was alive and happy in this very castle. She recalled falling asleep in that bed, tucked between her mother and father when she would have nightmares. They were nothing compared to the ones she had now.

“These are mother and father’s chambers,” she said softly.

“And?” Sansa sounded exasperated.

“Nothing,” Arya said, her brow twitching.

“Don’t do that,” her sister turned back to her.

“What?” Arya ran her fingers through the fur on the bed.

“Say what you mean.”

Arya sighed. “You always liked nice things. Made you feel better than everyone.”

Sansa made a face and set the papers in her hand down on the table. “Are you angry with me?”

“They were insulting Jon, and you sat there and listened,” Arya tested.

“I listened to their complaints, which is my responsibility as Lady of Winterfell,” Sansa explained.

“Their opinions are important to you.”

“Glover has five-hundred men, Royce has two-thousand. Offend them and Jon loses his army.”

“Not if they lose their heads first,” Arya smirked.

Sansa sighed and took a step towards her. “Winterfell didn’t just _fall_ into our hands. We took it back. And the Mormonts. And the Hornwoods. And the Wildlings. And the Vale. All of us, working together. Now, I’m sure cutting off heads is very satisfying but that’s not the way you get people to work together.”

“And if Jon doesn’t come back, you’ll need their support. So you can work _together_. To give you what you really want,” Arya goaded, a dark glint in her grey eyes.

“How can you even think such a horrible thing?” Her sister was truly surprised.

Arya took a step closer, provoking her more. It was possible Littlefinger had taught her how to lie better than Arya imagined. “You’re thinking it right now. You don’t want to be, but the thought just won’t go away.”

Sansa and Arya stared at each other, tensely. Arya watched her sister closely, reading every minuscule muscle twitch and shift of her crystal blue eyes for any hints that she intended to betray Jon in Littlefinger’s favor. She could see the conflict on her sister’s pale face: Sansa wanted to support Jon, but was also afraid of losing the North once more, like Robb had done.

“I have work to do,” Sansa concluded after a moment.

_Yes, dear sister, you do. We both do._

“My lady,” Arya nodded and saw herself out.

 

* * *

Bran sat quietly by the fire in his room, lost in his thoughts as Arya ran her finger over the wooden arm of the chair she sat in beside him. She did her best to spend time with him daily, both because she was finally with family again and she wanted every moment she could get, but also because she hoped maybe it would help bring some of the old Bran back. In the month since she’d arrived home, however, there had been little affect from her visits. Never the less, she came. 

“Where were you today, Bran?” She asked quietly, watching the warm glow of the hearth on his thinning face. 

Emotionless and hollow, Bran slowly looked over at her. He seemed to look through her; it was disquieting. Arya missed the smile in his eyes.

“I was here,” he said as though she should have known. “In the stables.”

“With father, Aunt Lyanna, Uncle Benjen and Uncle Bran?”

“No, I don’t go _there_ anymore,” he said solemnly and Arya detected a hint of sadness in his voice. “It was only days ago. I saw you with Sandor Clegane.”

Arya felt her heart jump and her skin flush. “Yes, I was there.”

“You don’t want him to leave Winterfell. You are fond of him,” he stated, void of emotion.

“I don’t know what I am,” she admitted, shifting in her seat. “Fond? Yes. But also frustrated? Confused? Bran, I feel like he’s the only one who knows who I am. And you’ve been so focused on being the Three-Eyed Raven that perhaps you haven’t explored what it means to be attracted to someone, but I also find myself… well, attracted to him.” 

Arya shook her head, feeling like a fool, her dark brow knitting together tightly. Looking up from where she sat, she noticed Bran had turned back to the fire, ignoring her therapy session, his eyes glassy and distant. With a resigned sigh, Arya went to stand and leave.

“He’s torn, you know,” Bran said, not looking up from the fire. “Part of him wants to stay here with you.”

“With me?”

Bran turned slowly to where she stood by the door, her hand on the handle. The look he gave her was chilling. “With you _._ ”

 

* * *

The fire crackled quietly from across the room, low and dim as it held onto its final warmth. Tiny flames danced delicately along the coals, soon to be extinguished. Arya looked from where she laid on the bed, seeing the hearth upside down as her head dangled slightly off the bed’s edge, her hair cascading like a tawny waterfall below her. 

Wine sloshed in a metal cup beside her and she looked over to see Sandor refilling his goblet. He sat on the floor beside her, close enough that she could smell him: earthy and warm, with hints of leather and pine. Arya took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, a small smile playing at her lips. 

There were still so many things to deal with outside these chamber doors, but these moments, in the quiet of the early evening, the rich scent of wine and the smokiness of the fire, with him beside her, were ones she would hold onto as winter edged closer. 

Arya sighed as she shifted to lie on her stomach, resting her chin on her crossed forearms in front of her. She looked over from her spot to see him staring off into the distant flames and wondered if he had seen anything else. Sandor wore only his britches and an untucked tunic, with the neck untied and loose, exposing half his shoulders and part of the hairy expanse of his chest. On his left shoulder she could see the scar from the bite he had gotten just weeks before they were separated. She chewed on her lip.

“Did it hurt?”

“What?”

Arya felt bold and reached her hand out to run a finger over the puffy skin of the scar. Perhaps it was the wine warming her belly, perhaps it was something else. Surprisingly, his skin was soft here and she lingered.

“That.”

“Aye,” Sandor said solemnly, closing his eyes as her finger ran over the bumps of its marred surface. “Should’ve let you burn it.”

Her finger remained on his skin and trailed to another scar a bit further down, just below his collarbone. 

“What’s this from?”

Sandor attempted to look down to where she pointed before hesitantly meeting her gaze. Arya couldn’t read his expression, which only served to frustrate her.

“Some fucker on Gin Alley.”

Arya hummed in acknowledgement and let her finger trail up to his neck where a long scar ran from his beard down and across his right pectoral. The dark hair was coarse up on his neck and she could feel him tense at the touch. 

“What about this one?” She said quietly, hearing her own voice falter ever so slightly.

“Arya...” he warned, looking up at her. She met his glance with an intensity that gave her butterflies. The odd combination of her sudden boldness and the delicious twist in her stomach was a heady sensation that left her feeling somehow both powerful and powerless. After what felt like an eternity of staring into those warm, sad brown eyes, she removed her hand and saw him almost instantly relax. She frowned.

Sandor cleared his throat, grabbing his goblet to take a deep drink. “What are you doing about that cunt, Littlefinger?”

“He’s hiding something from my sister. Or trying to get me to find it,” Arya took the goblet he offered as she sat up, taking a small sip. “I don’t think he knows that I’m onto his games. And Sansa... well, she’s clearly curried favor with the Northern lords but won’t say a thing in Jon’s defense, which is maddening. If he’s truly their King, the things they have said are treason and she should punish them as such.”

“You said it yourself, she’s your sister. You should be working together, not arguing over things like this. Did you talk to her about Littlefinger?”

“Not yet,” she mumbled behind him as she picked at the bedding. 

A lone red thread pulled free from the bedding in her fingers and she held it up to study it, pulling it apart into two pieces. Arya let the pieces fall from her fingers after a moment, turning to look at the back of his head. Her eyes trailed over the gentle wave of his hair down to his wide shoulders. On one side was the scar from the bite, on the other, she noticed a long, thin gash. She leaned over, settling on her elbow and brought a finger up to trace it without thought. 

Sandor turned and grabbed her wrist. “What are you _doing_?” he asked, almost helplessly. 

“Touching you,” she said, barely a whisper as she looked him in the eye. 

Sandor scowled and came to his feet, looking down at her. “It’s time to go,” he said gruffly, nodding towards the door.

“Can’t I stay?” Arya sat back up, letting her feet dangle to the floor.

“This has to stop, girl,” Sandor said, crossing his arms. 

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“I don’t, because you pretend its not there. _Why_?” She watched him closely but he refused to meet her gaze.

“You’re a child—”

“How dare you—I am _not_.”

“You know what I mean,” Sandor shook his head, exasperated. “This isn’t right—not long ago you wanted to kill me, left me to die. And I’m happy to have come across you again, I truly am; but you and I? No. I should have never let you in my room that first night—should’ve turned you away right then. Now go on, back to your own room.”

Arya’s face dropped and she looked away from him, so he couldn’t see the disappointment, the rejection on her face. The one person she trusted, the one person who knew who and what she was, didn’t want her anymore. Her fingers dug into the feather bed angrily.

“You don’t get it, do you?” she asked quietly, slowly looking up at him.

Sandor rose his good brow in question, his scowl softening.

“You’re the only one who gets me—who understands what I’ve gone through. Sansa doesn’t know who I am. Bran… well, he can find out, but its not the same. And when Jon returns, if he ever does, even he won’t understand. You’re the only one I’ve got, Sandor.”

Her voice broke and she squeezed her eyes closed tightly as she took a deep breath to calm herself. She had gotten good at shutting down her emotions thanks to her time in Braavos, but _he_ still caused her to have strong reactions. 

“Arya…” His voice was hushed, and Arya thought she detected fear or pain in his tone.

She felt the bed shift as Sandor sat down, putting his arm around her. What she thought would be a consoling hug turned into him pulling her back in his arms as he laid down, holding her close. She wanted to fight it, to yell at him for these mixed signals, to beg him to stay, and to tear into him to both destroy and devour him so she’d always have a piece of him. 

But instead she relaxed into his arms, turning to snake one of her own around him as she buried her head into his chest. The warm, comforting smell he had overcame her and unbidden, a small, tearless sob escaped her lips. 

“I’ve got ya,” he rasped as he squeezed her tight. 

“Not for long,” Arya mumbled into his chest as he ran calloused fingers through her soft hair. 

“Aye, not for long, but at least for now,” Sandor assured her.


	12. Sandor VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor tries to enjoy the last bits of warmth before heading out. He shares tense moments with Thoros and Arya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's no air around me, when we get this close but there's no where I want to go.  
> You keep it a secret if you feel the same and leave me dying to know.  
> \- Be There, Seafret

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Staring at the ceiling, all Sandor could think about was the feel of her fingers on his skin the night before. The delicate, gentle touch from hands he knew were capable of such destruction, the miserably enticing heat they left in their wake, and the control he had to force himself to exhibit. With everything that had happened as of late—Ray and the villagers’ deaths, reuniting with Arya, visions in the flames and coming face to face with the consequences of his actions at the farm house, and this urge to go north with the Brotherhood—Sandor could barely process the additional desires and emotions that came with… _whatever_ was happening between them. 

Nothing, if he could control it, he had to keep reminding himself. And that was becoming increasingly difficult. Their relationship was complicated, he knew that, but they had become close, both with what they’d gone through together years ago and how they’d bonded since they were reunited almost three moons ago. Arya trusted him, and that was something she didn’t offer freely. Neither of them were perfect, but somehow things just fell together effortlessly between them. Their conversations were easy, albeit smattered with casual bickering, their silences companionable and freeing, and their closeness… Well that’s where he started to get himself into trouble.

Sandor cursed Thoros for even putting the notion in his head to begin with: that there was some higher, stronger connection between the two of them that wasn’t mere coincidence. Just because he’d ended up at the same inn as the girl whose friend he’d rode down, didn’t mean there was something at work. Just because he had stumbled upon her when she escaped the Brotherhood, didn’t mean anything. Just because they’d missed her family in two places because they’d been killed, forcing them to travel longer together, offering him a chance to open up to her as the first person he’d began to trust since _he_ was a child, didn’t mean anything. And just because they had been reunited when both of them were traveling north, somehow new people while also still the same, didn’t mean anything. 

Arya shifted on the bed, turning towards him as she curled against his side in her sleep. Her mouth was slightly parted and in the quiet of the morning he could hear her faint breaths, watching as they blew the stray strands of brown hair that fell over her face. Gently he moved the hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. 

He tried his hardest to create an illusion of indifference towards her, to this situation they found themselves in. She didn’t need him. No matter what she said, Sandor didn’t believe that; he couldn’t. Because if he allowed himself to believe it, it started to make real all the things he had been trying to ignore. Like the breath he found himself inexplicably holding until she walked in the room, or how he had to force himself to blink every time he caught her eye. Once he no longer ignored it, there was no turning back, and he wasn’t prepared to do that. 

When he closed his eyes he remembered why he was leaving her: _those_ eyes—all those scared, wide eyes that slowly lost their light as he extinguished their flame. They haunted him, night after night, every person he’d mindlessly killed or wronged, and to him, the only way to rid himself of these nightmares was to do all he could to save those whose flames still burned bright. Like hers.

But he did feel like he was walking away from the first person who truly seemed to care about him. Who didn’t want him as a shield, or a brainless doer of bad deeds. Who accepted him for all his flaws, because she shared some of them. Arya wasn’t perfect, and yet somehow, to him, she was.

Sandor’s thumb brushed over the freckles that dusted her cheek as he watched her sleep. A gentle touch was not in his nature, but somehow he managed to do so without waking her. Arya meant a great deal to him, he knew that, but he also knew it would only serve to cause trouble with all that loomed on the horizon. Now was not the time to be soft; now was the time to harden and prepare for a long, cold night.

He knew Beric and Thoros wanted to talk with him later, and he could only assume that meant they were leaving soon. If that was so, he wanted to lay here as long as he could, absorbing every last bit of warmth she offered before he walked off into the cold, death-riddled night north of the Wall.

 

* * *

A brisk wind bit at his cheeks as he stepped out of the Great Keep. Despite the cold wind, it wasn’t snowing and the sun was shining. Sandor only hoped it lasted until they left for East Watch. It was still cold enough that the sun that beat down on the snow drifts dotting the yard had little effect on melting them. Sandor looked up, squinting as he eyed the sky—clear and blue for the first time in weeks. Overhead, a flock of ravens cawed as they made their way across the sky. Arya had told him that her brother was now the Three-Eyed Raven, which apparently meant he could see the past. Sandor shook his head in bemusement as he stalked across the yard towards the stables; dragons, visions in the flames, and boys who could look at anything they wanted simply by closing their eyes. Perhaps he had actually died when he fell off that cliff in the Vale. 

Women huddled around a table, sorting through large baskets of turnips and potatoes, bundled but happy. The clang of steel from the forge rang out over the yard, echoing off the tall, grey stone walls. He heard boys laughing off in another courtyard, the training yard from the sounds of it, as they sparred with one another in preparation for what was being called The Great War by the King in the North. Sandor caught a glimpse through a passage as one of the boys fell to the ground, giggling and clearly not taking his training seriously. Perhaps the Master-of-Arms could use the help, as Arya had suggested. 

As he passed the kennels, he saw some of the Northern Lords as well as Yohn Royce of the Vale talking quietly with Littlefinger. The thin man looked shifty as always, and the men around him seemed quite confused by whatever it was he was telling them. Without thinking, Sandor looked around to see if Arya was watching, but his untrained eye did not notice her in any obvious place. 

“‘Bout time you got your ass in here, Clegane,” Thoros drawled as Sandor walked down the straw-covered stone hall towards where their horses were stabled. He grunted in response as he approached.

“There’s only two of ye,” he noted as he watched Beric test fit some of the saddle bags on one of the horses. 

“Aye,” Beric called over his shoulder. “The rest are going to head back south and link up with Anguy in the Riverlands.”

“Since we’ve been gone things have gone tits up, with the Freys out of the picture,” Thoros interjected as he handed Beric a heavy pack. 

“So what do you need from me?”

Thoros sauntered to where he stood by the door of the stall and leaned heavily against the wooden wall, eyeing him. “To be perfectly honest, I wanted to make sure you hadn’t ran off with the Stark girl, yet. And baring that, I wanted to see if you had _intentions_ of doing such a thing before we leave. So?”

Sandor made a face, his brow heavy as he glared at the red priest. “I’m not some young twat, trying to run from danger.”

“It was never said that you were. If anything, you’re an old cunt,” Thoros grinned. “You didn’t answer my question though, Clegane.” 

At this point Beric had stopped what he was doing and watched him with masked curiosity. Sandor let out a long breath through flared nostrils. “What makes you think I had any plans to _run off_?”

Thoros raised a surprised brow towards Beric, moving his hand in a circular motion as though to point between the three of them collectively. “We _have_ been watching the same thing unfold over the last moon, no?”

“Aye,” Beric chuckled warmly as he turned back to the horse. “We have. Don’t pester him about it, Thoros. Some people it takes time to realize what’s in front of them.” 

“I’m still here, you know,” Sandor growled. 

“Oh, we know. You’re a bit hard to miss,” Thoros teased as he moved from his place against the stall, aimlessly walking out into the stable hall. “We watch the looks you give each other, the little smirks and quiet chatter. Never took you for a talker, Clegane—what _secrets_ could you possibly be telling the Stark girl?” He waggled his brow for emphasis.

“Keep your voice down,” Sandor grumbled through grit teeth as he crossed his arms, watching as the priest ran his hand over hanging halters, their leather straps and steel bits scraping quietly against the wood stalls. 

Thoros moved several stalls down, absently toeing straw off the stone cobbles beneath his worn boots. He grinned impishly and Sandor wondered when the man _wasn’t_ at the bottom of a barrel. 

“Or those heated sparring matches—trying to suss out who’s the more dominant canine,” Thoros made his way back towards where Sandor stood, his grin getting increasingly toothy. 

“Honestly, my money might be on the wolf. She’s fierce, that one, I’ll give you that. Though perhaps with all those evenings you spend locked away with her, you could offer a clearer—”

Sandor shoved the priest up against one of the stalls with a growl, his face dark. The horse inside the stall nickered anxiously as it shifted away from the commotion. Sandor’s fist balled tightly around the dirty, chunky shawl he wore about his shoulders, pushing up under Thoros’ jaw. But the priest didn’t seem worried, a sly grin still across his thin lips despite his feet not touching the ground.

“Maybe I should have said, ‘shut the fuck up’ instead,” Sandor sneered as he glared at the drunk man. 

“You wouldn’t want to start our journey off on such a bad foot, by killing me, would you, Clegane?” Thoros drawled, batting his eyes innocently as he tried not to cough with Sandor’s fist pressed into his throat. 

“Might be, I’d be better off,” he threatened, staring at the priest with a sneer for a moment more before letting him go. 

Thoros chuckled as his boots hit the stone once more, rubbing his throat. “Didn’t expect such passion from a big, hard man such as yourself.” 

Sandor turned back to him, taking a step closer. His fist balled up and had he not been wearing gloves, the white of his knuckles would have shown. “Your fire god won’t save you from an ass-beating, priest,” he warned. 

“Am I going to have to stay between you two the whole journey?” Beric called from the stall. 

Sandor shot him a dark look over his shoulder before grunting at Thoros and making his way out of the stable. 

“We leave in two days’ time, Clegane! Best say your goodbyes,” Thoros called, his tone annoyingly jovial.

 

* * *

Sandor stood several paces from her, his chest heaving out clouds in front of him and a dampness freezing to his face. Arya was fast and hard to read, an advantage of her Braavosi-inspired training for certain. With a lame leg, Sandor found himself struggling to keep pace with her. 

“Need a break?” she goaded, a mischievous twinkle in her grey eyes. 

Sandor scoffed. “Piss on that. You won’t come out on top.”

“I’m pretty sure the score is in my favor—how many hits have you landed?” Arya eyed him smugly as she moved gracefully around him, just out of his reach.

“Only need one good hit when you’re using a big—”

“Fucking sword, yes,” she grinned, dodging him as he came towards her.

Arya spun as he passed, swinging Needle only to connect with his dulled training sword in a sharp _clang_ that echoed off the stone walls around them. Sandor clicked his teeth in jest before immediately coming around with a wide swing and a grunt. Deftly she dodged it, her body seeming to bend over to the invisible wave of force in the air as the sword approached her. It was maddening. 

“I’m leaving in the morning,” he admitted, slightly out of breath as she circled him. 

It was late afternoon now, the sky already starting to turn deep blue as the sun slid behind the horizon. Sandor watched as the playful grin faded from her reddened face and the warm twinkle in her grey eyes turned cold and dark like the looming night. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked quietly, her voice eerily calm. 

“I’m telling you now,” he pointed out with a frown. 

Arya stood quiet for a moment, and Sandor thought their sparring match was over. The only movement from her was the steady, even clouds dissipating in front of her slightly parted lips as she stared at him. He wondered how she could stare that long without blinking, until she closed her eyes and rolled her shoulders back. The life seemed to come back to her as she looked up at him, twisting Needle in her hand slowly before letting it fall from her hands to the dirt.

She came at him then, with that fire in her eyes he was so fond of. It was unlike her to make the first move and it caught him off guard for a moment before he used it to his advantage, dodging her only barely. As she went past him, his arm reached out for her, but he had miscalculated her speed and it pulled him towards her and she towards him, surprising and toppling the both of them.

With a string of curses and grunts, they fell in a tangle to the ground, Arya’s bottom half laying over his stomach as he stared up at the sky. Before Sandor could collect himself, she had climbed up, straddling him as she stared at him with those damnable grey eyes. For a moment he watched her, trying to ignore the warm weight of her atop him, his hands aching to grab her thighs. 

He thought she might kiss him then, but she didn’t. Instead she punched him in the arm, much like when they’d been reunited some months back. He grunted in surprise. When Sandor didn’t move, she sneered and punched him harder. 

“I thought you said you were going to _win_ ,” she growled as she grabbed hold of the chest of his gambeson and shook him as much as her small arms could. 

“Stop it, Arya,” Sandor said quietly as he let her shake him. 

The taste of blood was in his mouth before he realized she had punched him in the face. Running his tongue over his lower lip, he hissed when he came to the busted skin. Arya was panting, her breaths heavy through her flared nostrils as she glared at him with wet eyes. Squaring her jaw, she raised her hand to hit him again but he reached up as she swung, grabbing her wrist tightly.

“Crazy bitch!” Sandor spat, squeezing her arm tightly between gloved fingers. 

With her other hand, she smacked him hard on the chest, flat palmed. Somehow her boney knee jabbed him in the side, causing him to let her wrist go and she started pounding on his chest and stomach. 

“Fight me, damnit!” she yelled as a tear ran down her cheek. 

He hated seeing her like this; he knew she hated _being_ like this. If he’d learned anything about her over the last few moons, it was that she did her best to maintain a calm, collected demeanor so she could focus her energy and attentions on what was going on around her. But the two of them, whatever force seemed to pull them together, seemed to turn all that upside down.

Arya punched him again in the stomach before reaching up to put her small hands around his throat. Her eyes had gone dark and he knew she was somewhere in her head where vengeance reigned supreme. With a low growl deep in his choked throat, he pushed her off him and came to look down upon her. But being beneath him didn’t stop her, as she tried to knee him in the groin, only succeeding in getting his inner thigh. Sandor sat back, pinning her legs to the ground beneath him, but she just grabbed at his jacket, pulling herself up as she punched him in the collarbone. 

“Enough, girl,” he barked, grabbing her shoulders and pinning her to the ground. 

Arya was all fire in that moment, a fire he could not—did not want to—put out. Her chest heaved rapidly under her brown leathers, dirtied and scuffed from their tussle. Sandor watched her parted lips as she calmed herself, trying not to think about what they felt like. After a moment, he felt her hands reach up to grab the backs of his arms gently, caressing them. She bit her lip and Sandor immediately thought about Thoros’ comments about their sparring and shook himself out of the moment. 

Climbing hastily to his feet, he dusted himself off, looking around to see no one was in the yard. _Thank the gods._ Looking down, he saw Arya still lying on the ground, looking off into the darkening sky with a grim expression on her face. Sandor cleared his throat and held out his hand to her, to help her up. 

She blinked and looked over at him, and Sandor thought she had caught his _fucking_ _soul_ on fire. Arya stared at him for a moment, what felt like an eternity, before ignoring his hand, coming to her own feet, and stalking off towards the Godswood without a single word.

“Arya!” he called after her, but she didn’t look back. 

He caught a glint in the corner of his eye and looked down to see Needle still lying in the dirt. With a resigned sigh, he picked the little sword up, running his fingers over the worn leather grip, the intricate metal work on the guard and the sharp, thin blade that surely had poked holes in quite a few men. The girl—no, woman—was more than capable of handling herself, and did not need a soft-headed oaf like himself to get in the way of her slow decimation of her enemies, of her eventual happiness. He had to make her see that, even if he didn’t want to. 

Slowly, Sandor made his way towards the Godswood to find her.


	13. Arya VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor departs. Arya begins plotting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they roared as loud as thunder  
> and carried lightning  
> in the strike of their cruelty,  
> but what are thunder and lightning  
> to fearless girls who are used  
> to carrying entire storms  
> and hurricanes  
> in their fingertips?  
> —For the Fearless, Nikita Gill

 

* * *

  

 

* * *

 

Arya angrily wiped at her face as she charged through the gate into the Godswood. Slivers of light flickered where the setting sun managed to get through the snow-covered evergreens to the near-pristine snowy carpet that laid over the grove. Arya crunched through the snow quickly, following the path that meandered through the trees towards the frozen pool and heart tree. She wasn’t sure why she felt such a strong need to be near the tree right now, perhaps it was because it reminded her of her lady mother, and her mother would know what to do with these silly, girlish notions that had started to fill her head. 

Her mother would be able to help her understand what the intangible pain in her chest was, why she was having trouble breathing and maybe even offer some soothing words to calm her down. Arya nearly stopped in her tracks, realizing she hadn’t ached for her mother for some time.

As she approached the heart tree, she slowed her pace, stepping carefully over the red leaves that had fallen to the ground. Pulling her gloves off, she ran her fingers over the white bark, feeling its pits and ridges as she closed her eyes. Arya took a deep breath in, taking in the fragrance of home—cold air, pine, lingering smoke. She let out a shaky exhale and opened her eyes to stare into the bleeding eyes of the tree. Approaching steps crunching in the icy snow pulled her from her reverie. 

“You left this,” she heard behind her, his warm timbre turning the skin on the back of her neck to gooseflesh.

Arya turned to see Sandor standing halfway around the frozen pool, her tiny sword dwarfed in his grip. His face was soft, somber, and it took all she had to meet his gaze. She took a painful swallow, pushing down the lump in her throat. Slowly, hesitantly, he walked to where she stood beneath the heart tree, holding the sword out as a peace offering of sorts. His lip was bloodied beneath his long whiskers from where she’d punched him but she wasn’t sure she regretted it.

“I want you to stay here,” she said quietly as she took the sword back from him.

“I know you do, but I can’t.”

“You _can_ ,” Arya scoffed, her dark brow knitted tightly together. 

“You wanted to prove to people I’m more than a mindless killer—more than just the _Hound_ —this is how,” Sandor said, his voice going low.

He stared at her for a second, frowning as he searched her face. His eyes were warm, but sad, much more sad than they usually were. On a few occasions she had been witness to the light—the happiness—that could be found within their chestnut depths, but this was not one of those times.

“I lie awake at night thinking about all the people I’ve killed,” he admitted, the shame clear on his face. “All the horrible things I’ve done because I was told to. I can see their faces, hear their cries for mercy.” 

Sandor turned to look out across the frozen pool to the snowy forest before them, his bloodied lip set in a grim line. Arya wanted to run her thumb over it gently, to rid it of the red stain.

“I’ve been given a second life—a chance to prove myself, that I can do something for good. And I’m not going to fuck it up.”

“You can prove that by staying here and helping the new Master-of-Arms,” she offered once more. “Have you seen how over his head he is with all those kids?”

Sandor let out a curt bark of a laugh and looked down at her. “Aye, he could use the help. Might be you’d do well to give them a few lessons.”

Arya looked up at him, her eyes pleading. “You’ll die.”

“As will you, one day.” 

She frowned. “That’s not what I mean. You don’t know what’s up there, you can’t abandon me again—” 

She cut herself off as the words slipped from her lips. Quickly, her eyes went to the snowy ground, littered with fallen red leaves. 

“ _Abandon_ you?” he asked incredulously, turning towards her. “You can not be serious, girl. I gave my damned life for you, pain in the ass that you were.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that,” she snapped, raising her voice as she felt the anger build up in her body.

“No, you didn’t. I did it because you were helpless; _useless_ save for the coin I’d get. Always running into trouble and needing me to save your scrawny ass. You still keen on getting yourself killed? Maybe you’re the one who ought to go north,” he sneered as he stepped forward, closing the space between them. 

Arya bit her lip as she clenched her fist around the pommel of the dagger on her left side. She was smarter than this; she knew this was just their way of pushing away the swirl of tense looks and complicated emotions that had plagued them for a moon. He wasn’t staying; he _was_ abandoning her this time, just to go off to his death. What point was there in trying to get him to stay? What point was there in pretending that there could be anything once he came back to Winterfell—if he even _wanted_ to come back?

“You want to die, is that it?” Arya growled, pulling the dagger from its sheath with a tight grip.

“That’s what you’ll get if you go north of the Wall. Why don’t I give you that mercy you begged for all those years ago, and save Beric and Thoros the headache of your company?” 

She stepped forward swiftly, bringing the blade up to his throat. Sandor stood there, tall, broad and foreboding, looking down at her as she held the edge to the flesh of his neck. Arya watched his nostrils flare as he took steady breaths, the tiny clouds evaporating as they hit the cool air.

“Is this what _you_ want? Get on with it, then,” his words were measured and low, and his eyes did not leave hers. 

Arya could feel her heart pounding in her chest, desperate to escape its boney prison. Her grip was steady but she relaxed ever so slightly. It was enough for him to notice and he wrapped his hand around her wrist, pulling the blade away. She didn’t take her eyes off him, though her gaze trailed from his eyes, over the scars on the right side of his face, to his winter-thick beard, finally resting on the red smear on his bottom lip. 

With her other hand, she reached up and cupped the scarred side of his face. Sandor flinched more when she touched him here than when she held the blade to his throat. Chewing on her own lip, she gently brushed her thumb over his lip, wiping away the blood. Her hand lingered.

“Damn you, Sandor Clegane,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “I want to kill you and kiss you at the same time.”

“Best choose one, not much time left,” he murmured as his gaze fell to her mouth. His grip loosened on her wrist. 

Arya felt drawn to him then, as though gravity had taken over, pulling her in. Moving a half step closer, she stood on her toes as he bent to meet her. His hand reached around the back of her head, holding her near as she gingerly pressed her lips to his in a chaste, tentative kiss. The moment their lips touched, Arya felt like something clicked; something she had known was there but was always just outside of her grasp. It was the desperate drink of cool water on a scorching day, the comforting heat of the fire on a frigid night, the rush of wind on her face as she ran barefoot through a blooming spring field, and the filling of a void she hadn’t known was truly there until it no longer was. Arya felt dizzy, but she knew now that his strong grasp wouldn’t let her fall.

His lips were unexpectedly soft, save for where she had busted his lower one. The long whiskers around them poked and tickled her face, but she didn’t care. She wanted them to tickle her face for eternity. Her stomach twisted in knots and that warm ache she had felt low in her belly was hotter than it had ever been. Arya thought she might throw up from the myriad of sensations coursing through her body as they separated. Pressing her forehead to his, she looked up to see those brown eyes staring back at her. There was a glimmer in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, a new kind of warmth and softness, and she felt her lip twitch upwards ever so slightly at one corner.

Sandor let go of her wrist and she quickly sheathed the dagger. With her hands dug into the thick, coarse hair along his jaws, she pulled him close again, this time with less hesitation and more desire. He snaked his arms around her waist and lifted her from the ground as she squeezed her eyes shut. 

She’d never kissed a man before, never kissed anyone save for her family, and those were not like this. Those were quick pecks to show affection for your own blood, almost always on the cheek or the forehead. But this—this sent her reeling as she kissed him eagerly, her tongue tentatively darting out to meet his. She’d watched the girls in the brothels of Braavos as they consorted with men, so she had a general sense of how it all worked, but when her lips touched his, her brain turned to mush and she went on pure instinct. 

It felt like ages that they embraced, sharing that passionate but tender kiss, when really it was mere moments. When the kiss broke and her feet touched the ground once more, Arya was breathless. Sandor still held her close, looking down at her as she laid her hands on his chest. She could feel his heart beating through his leathers and it took everything she had to not lean up to kiss him again. 

Sandor held her face tenderly, running his thumb along her cheek as she finally met his gaze. A stupid smirk forced its way onto her face, but he just stood there, solemn.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Arya frowned.

“Don’t be daft. Might have done us some good to have done that awhile back,” he pondered, still solemn. 

“Then what?” 

Arya didn’t think his face could get more grim, but somehow it did. His other hand came up to hold the other side of her face as he studied her. Leaning in, he pressed a kiss to her forehead before pulling her close and wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

“I know you don’t need it, girl, but if there’s a way for me to protect Winterfell—to protect _you_ —from this… this _death_ that is coming for us all, I’m damned well going to do what I can.”

“I thought you were going north for yourself?” 

“Aye, but you’re more important.” 

She relaxed into his strong embrace, taking in the warm, smoky smell of leather and juniper in an effort to hold on a bit longer. Could Thoros’ red strings be broken and put back together? Arya supposed it wasn’t the first time they’d been pulled apart; perhaps the thread would still be strong enough to bring them together once more.

 

* * *

Arya knew she should have been there to see him off, but she couldn’t dare try to utter her goodbyes with so many people around. They had said their’s the night before in the Godswood, and she wanted that moment to stand out if it was to be their last. When they’d returned to the bailey under cover of darkness, Thoros had sought him out for final preparations and she had made herself scarce since. 

She watched from the battlements as the three men left the yard, their saddle bags stuffed with food and supplies for the long, cold journey to East Watch. Sandor’s dark, searching gaze did not go unnoticed, but she kept out of his sight. Arya moved to the other side and watched the riders begin to head north, the Wolfswood to their left. Sandor trailed behind the others, pulling his horse to a stop as he looked back towards Winterfell. 

It was like a dagger through her heart as she locked eyes with him. She hadn’t meant to be seen, but now that she’d been found, she never wanted his gaze to leave hers. Tears welled up in her eyes and Arya swore she could still feel the lingering taste of him on her lips as they stared at each other from such a distance. 

Her arm felt foreign as she raised it to wave to him, as though it were held up by a string like a puppet. Sandor nodded grimly at her before kicking his heels into his horse and turning to catch up with Beric and Thoros. All that remained was a white cloud of snow as he disappeared over the ridge. 

As a tear broke from her watery gaze and ran down her cold cheek, Arya closed her eyes and took a deep, refreshing breath of Northern air. Rolling her shoulders back, she turned towards the courtyard where she could see Sansa and Littlefinger walking into the Great Hall, with Brienne and Podrick trailing close behind.  

It was time to rid Winterfell of its rat problem.

 

* * *

In an effort to ignore the hollowness she felt with Sandor’s departure, Arya dove head first into figuring out what Littlefinger was up to. She knew what she was doing when she let Littlefinger see her, purposely let the door creak shut and locked it loudly, knowing he was watching her. And once she read the parchment, it only served to confirm that Petyr Baelish was intent on taking Winterfell by putting sister against sister like he had to get control of the Vale.

She clutched the rolled message tightly in her hand as she stalked down the hall towards Sansa’s chambers. Arya found her sister at the table by the hearth and closed the door quietly after checking no one had followed her. 

“Arya… what’s going on?” Sansa blinked, looking up from the pile of papers in front of her. 

“It’s Littlefinger,” she said quietly as she approached. Sansa came to her feet, pressing the creases out of her skirts, waiting for Arya to continue.

“I don’t trust him—he’s talking to the other lords behind your back. I’ve been following him for awhile to see what he was up to. He wanted me to find this,” Arya held out the scroll Sansa had written to Robb ages ago. 

Sansa unfurled the note and Arya could see her visibly go white. “Cersei made me—”

“I know,” Arya said dismissively. Clasping Sansa’s hands in hers, the scroll crumbling between them, she looked up at her sister with a worried look on her face.

“Littlefinger wants Winterfell. If he could, he’d take King’s Landing, but he’ll start here. Sansa, we can’t have rats in the den. We need to squash him, and we need to be smart about it,” Arya squeezed her sister’s hands tightly as her dark brows knit together. 

“I’ll do what I can to keep Winterfell from his grasp; Jon is King, it’s ours. What do you suggest?”

“We play his game,” Arya released her sister’s hands. Lightly grasping the dagger that had been meant to kill her brother, she continued, “If I make a big deal about this like he wants, create tension between us, it’ll help us to better understand how he plans to go about this.”

Sansa frowned and walked to the hearth, folding her arms. “But he brought the Vale to us, to betray him…” 

“You _cannot_ trust him.”

Sansa scoffed. “Of course not, only a fool would.”

Arya smiled sadly as she recalled Sandor saying the same thing. It had been a week since he had left, and the ache she felt when he rode out of the gates had not eased at all.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this, Sansa. Why would he want me to find the letter if not to cause us to fight?” 

Arya came to stand beside her sister, looking up at her. Sansa had grown so much; they both had. Her experiences were written in the tightness of her jaw, the iciness of her blue gaze. She may have looked like a Tully, but Sansa had become a wolf, that much Arya knew.

A small smirk tugged at the corner of Sansa’s lips as she looked down at her sister. 

“Petyr told me once, ‘A man with no motive is a man no one suspects. If they don’t know who you are, or what you want, they won’t know what you’ll do next.’ It was a good lesson, and I think it’s time it was put to use.”

“We do know what he wants, but we need to prove it,” Arya considered, a knowing smile dancing on her lips as well. 

She grabbed her sister’s hand and hurried to the door. Sansa followed her silently down the stone hall, down the winding staircase that led to the first floor chambers and came to a stop outside a wide wooden door. Arya looked up at her sister, and Sansa nodded. 

With a knock, Arya pushed the door open slightly. The room was dim but warm from the large fire that burned in the hearth. Sitting in front of it, in the wheeled-chair Maester Wolkan had made for him, sat their all-seeing, all-knowing brother.

“Bran, we need your help.” 


	14. Sandor VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor and the Brotherhood travel north, before running into trouble.

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

As he crested the hill, Sandor could make out the frozen waters of Long Lake and a modest thatched-roof building with smoke drifting lazily into the cold afternoon air. A small, empty lean-to serving as a stable was to one side with a fenced in pen that likely held livestock at one point on the other. He thought it odd there was smoke coming from the chimney yet no horses, but he dismounted all the same and made his way inside. 

“You’ve got to be cold,” he heard from the figure sitting in front of the hearth. He knew that voice. 

“It’s not that bad,” he reasoned gruffly as he undid his tattered cloak and shook the snow from it. Tossing his worn leather gloves on the table, he sat down beside her with a tired groan.

“I missed you,” Arya said as she looked over at him with warmth that seemed reserved only for him in her grey eyes. Her eyebrow quirked up as she watched him.

“Is that why you’re here?” he smirked beneath his long whiskers as he took his boots off. The stones near the hearth were warm and quickly began thawing his aching feet. “How long have you been waiting?”

“Not long,” she said softly as she came to her feet and walked over to him. 

Arya pushed her way between his knees and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing his forehead firmly. Sandor held her close as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, afraid she might disappear any moment. She was warm, almost too warm, from sitting by the fire. Soft, floral notes teased his senses as he took a deep breath, giving way to juniper, leather and the crisp freshness of the North, of House Stark.

A constellation of freckles dusted her cheekbones from her time in Braavos, and despite his paws of hands, he wanted to spend all day tracing them. She had become a woman while they were apart; a wild, deadly, cunning, beautiful woman who for whatever reason wanted his company. _Poor choice of company_ , he thought.

“You _are_ good company,” she answered as a small smile played at the corner of her pink lips. Sandor didn’t question how she knew what he was thinking, he only wanted to taste those lips once more. It had been weeks since he’d kissed her, and if he had his way, he would savor every part of her for as long as she’d allow him. Oh, the things he’d do to her.

He leaned forward and pressed a light kiss where her lips turned up at the end. The skin was soft and pliable against his and he lingered as his eyes drifted closed in contentment. Arya turned into the kiss with a sigh as her hand grasped either side of his face. She was much more eager and forceful, as she pushed him back in the chair and straddled his lap. Her teeth grazed his lower lip before her tongue found his and a growl escaped his throat as his hands grabbed at her rear to pull her tight against him. 

He ached for her as his hands slowly explored her small, lithe body, memorizing every dip and curve, listening for her quiet sighs as he touched her in places she liked. Sandor left her lips to kiss other parts of her: her long neck, those delicious collarbones, the warm place just behind her ear. As he nipped at her ear he was rewarded with the most perfect, soft mewl. Arya’s small hands began undoing the buckles on his black gambeson and untying the ties at the top of his tunic to run her hands over his chest. 

“It’s time to go, Clegane,” she whispered in his ear before her pink tongue ran along the lobe. 

Sandor growled against her neck as he pulled her closer. His hands had finally made their way beneath her tunic and the feel of her soft, warm skin was heavenly. He didn’t want to leave it. Why would he have to?

“Where are we going?” he mumbled as he found her lips once more. 

“Get your lazy ass up, or we’ll leave you for the animals,” came the response, but it wasn’t her. No, he was still kissing her; she was still keening against him with her little fingers trailing down between their bodies to the uncomfortable tightness between his legs… 

Then he felt a sharp jab in his side and gasped, sucking in frigid winter air. 

It was cold, much too cold compared to where he just was. Sandor swore he could still feel the weight of her on his thighs, the slight tickle as her fingers explored his body, but as he opened his eyes, he saw not the sharp grey gaze he longed for, but the impish blue stare of an already drunk priest. _How in seven hells was he pissed already?_

“Have a good dream, Clegane?” Thoros piped through a toothy grin as he looked down at him. 

“Until you woke me,” he grumbled, sitting up and adjusting the aching bulge between his legs.

“Well, it was about time,” the priest chirped as he took a swig of rum. “We were beginning to think you’d croaked in the cold.”

“If you nancies would shut up at night, might be I’d get some sleep. All that whispering like damn maids and grunting like hogs,” Sandor glared at the two of them. 

“Need to stay warm somehow,” Thoros shrugged with an unapologetic grin as he walked off to the horses.

It had been more than three weeks of this: cold, snowy, fitful sleeps that he tried to make better with dreams of a Winterfell that could have been. Thoros had suggested that he sleep beside him and Beric to make the nights more bearable, but Sandor had told him he wasn’t keen on buggery and he’d do well to keep his dick to himself unless he wanted it hanging about his neck.

Thoros seemed to drip with mirth as he bridled a horse while Beric just ignored his whinging and continued about his business around the small camp they’d made, tucked away in a pine grove off the rutted road that led to East Watch. 

“I’d say we have about three days ride left before we reach East Watch,” Beric was saying as he sat beside the small fire, warming his hands. 

“Thank the gods,” Sandor rumbled as he shook out the snow-dusted furs that had covered him. They were much thicker than the ones they’d traveled to Winterfell with, Arya had made sure of that.

“I do hope you’re not expecting more favorable conditions, Clegane,” Thoros pointed out as he saddled one of the horses.

“I’m not a bloody fool,” he glared as he stood to pack up his bedroll. His cold, tight muscles ached as they were stretched. Thinking about warm feather beds wasn’t making these living conditions any easier. Feather beds weren’t in his future anytime soon, that much was for certain.

 

* * *

Sandor braced himself against the onslaught of icy wind that whipped up the snow around them as they trudged forward slowly. Squinting, he swore he could make out the ominous, imposing form of the Wall, but given that he could hardly see Thoros who was right in front of him, that was unlikely. This white hell was getting to his head and this was only the beginning.

If it wasn’t for the eyes he saw when he closed his own, he would have turned back to Winterfell a long time ago. Hell, he probably wouldn’t have ever left, but those eyes still haunted him and drove him. The dull eyes of those he’d slain, and the bright, grey eyes of something to hope for. Ones to repent, ones to protect. Sandor still didn’t know what they were going to do once they got north of the Wall, and he’d gotten tired of Beric’s continual prattling about ‘the lord’s will’. Perhaps it was time to just let his will be done, Sandor sighed in resignation. 

The snow storm danced angrily around them for what felt like hours, and had his face not been completely numbed by the cold long ago, its sharp, icy flakes would have stung miserably. He wanted to stop, wanted to turn back, but he would have even settled for a dry, warm room for a spell. In fact, he wasn’t picky, the room didn’t have to be warm as long as it was away from this miserable snow and wind, even for ten minutes.

When finally the snow calmed and Sandor could look upon the Wall that rose into the clouds, he felt his purpose renewed. He still wasn’t sure what they would do when they got to the other side, or even _how_ they would get to the other side, but something in him burned hot to continue their journey with haste.

“That’s a big fucking wall of ice,” he mused aloud. 

“Aye,” Beric agreed. “We’re close now.”

“You plannin’ to just knock on the gate and ask nicely to go to the other side?” Sandor eyed the man beside him sardonically. 

Before Beric could answer however, Sandor felt something rush past his ear. An arrow. The men looked around, turning their horses in the freshly fallen snow as they sought out the source of the threat. There was nothing but white and grey frozen tundra in every direction. It was a wonder they had managed to navigate through the storm without getting turned around. 

Another arrow sang past Sandor and landed firmly in the eye of Beric’s mare, who reared high with a loud scream, knocking its rider to the cold ground. The horse’s panicked bray was a sound Sandor hadn’t heard in years, but in a rush of adrenaline the memories of bloody battles hit him like the force of an angry ocean. The beast took off through the snow, leaving a smattering of red on the pristine white ground, but didn’t get far before three more arrows sunk into it’s dense muscles with sickening _thwacks!_ , bringing it to the ground. 

Beric clamored to his feet and drew his sword, searching the horizon frantically for the enemy. As Sandor tried to calm his steed, his heart racing, he finally noticed movement.

“There,” he nodded, directing them to the five colorless masses that quickly made their way towards them.

“We come peacefully, my friends,” Thoros called out, reining in his nervous mare. 

“They don’t,” Sandor growled, his hand tight on the hilt of his sword. 

The men approached through the snow drifts with practiced ease, arrows knocked and steadily pointed at them. They were rough looking and wore a patchwork of white and grey furs over their whole body. It hid them well, that much was for certain.

“Why you up this far?” asked one with dark, mangy hair who seemed to led the group.

“We’re on our way to East Watch,” Beric explained, sheathing his sword as a friendly gesture, despite his horse groaning out its final breaths mere yards away. 

“Ain’t nothing for ye there,” another one with long, scraggly blonde hair said as he came up, removing his sword from its sheath.

Sandor started to draw his blade when the man raised his own and brought it down through the horse’s skull, putting the beast out of its misery. Red blood flowed out, soaking into the pristine white snow around it. 

“Off yer horses,” the dark haired one ordered as two of the other men came towards them with ropes. “Weapons, all of them.” 

“The fuck you think you are?” Sandor sneered as one of the men approached his horse. 

“Charged with watching the Wall for you southern cunts,” the dark haired one snapped, his patience growing thin. “Now, get down before we shoot ye down.”

Had their destination not been East Watch, he would have put up a fight, but he was hungry, cold, and tired and at least this way they’d get through the main gate. Sandor glared down at Beric as he dismounted and slowly began undoing his sword belt. Thoros followed suit, and before long the three of them were being restrained and marched towards the very place they had intended to go.

 

* * *

“Why’d you _kill_ the fucking horse?” a tall, red-headed man who seemed to be in charge asked, his eyes wide as he looked at the man beside Sandor. “We need all the horses we can get for scouting.”

“Meat,” one of the scouts said, simply. “Cook said we was running low.”

The other wildling’s nostrils flared in aggravation as he eyed the man, before sighing in resignation and turning back to his captives. The red-headed man was as tall as he was and had a wild yet tired look in his eyes. He appraised them quietly for a moment, his brow set low.

“Since when are wildlings on the Wall?” Sandor flexed against the ropes that bound his hands too tightly behind his back. He’d heard stories of what these people did up here and the two just didn’t add up.

“What the _free folk_ are doing here isn’t your concern—what you’re doing here, however, _is_ my concern,” he said almost dismissively, as though he didn’t have time to deal with this problem. 

“What you want us to do with ‘em, Tormund?”

The one called Tormund appraised them for a moment, suspiciously eyeing him in particular. If he wasn’t restrained, Sandor was sure he could take the son of a bitch. A mischievous grin slowly appeared beneath the wilding’s thick, scraggly red beard. 

“Take ‘em to the cells, I’ll question them later.”

 

* * *

Sandor exhaled heavily, watching as his breath clouded above him in the cold, damp cell. This wasn’t what he had in mind when he’d thought about a room away from the snow, he thought grimly. His back ached from laying on the worn wooden bench, but at least it was off of the colder, damper floor. He clutched the tattered yellow cloak closely as he stared distantly at the ceiling of the cell. 

It had been three days since they’d been tossed in here. Three dull, frustrating days. They’d gotten no answers from the guards on why they were being held or when they might be released. In fact they weren’t even visited except for the single meal they got early in the day. One corner at the far end of the cell, away from where they were, the smell of urine and excrement was growing stronger. Sandor cursed himself for not staying in Winterfell. 

Winterfell was warm, dry, and didn’t smell like shit. And she was there. It was the only thing that kept him from going mad like the now-sober priest. Sandor closed his eyes and could see her grey eyes burning with so many pent up emotions, her leather-clad chest heaving as he pinned her down that last night in the training yard, moments before she had kissed him. The taste and feel of her against his lips was a distant memory now, something he still tried to hold onto but found increasingly difficult. Perhaps there was no point in pining over something as trivial as a kiss from a pretty young lass, but more than a hot meal, a soft bed or a skin of wine, it was the one thing he found himself aching for.

Sandor was broken from his reverie as Thoros let out a shaky groan. He looked over to see Beric kneeling beside the priest where he sat in a dark corner with his cloak wrapped tightly around his hunched shoulders as ragged, short breaths escaped his thin lips. He half expected Thoros to double over as he’d done many times since they’d been put here and retch up what small amount of food had made it’s way into his stomach. That was an odor Sandor could do without right now.

“You’re shaking,” Beric noted, the concern evident in his gravely voice as one hand settled on the priest’s knee.

“I need a drink,” Thoros hissed. 

“Aye,” Beric agreed with a smirk. “You’re poor company like this.”

Sandor watched with dull, half-closed eyes as Beric brushed away some of the stray hairs that clung to Thoros’s sweat-dampened face. The priest looked up at Beric with a feeble smile before the one-eyed man slid down the wall to sit beside him. Putting his arm around him, Beric pressed a gentle kiss to redhead’s damp forehead as he pulled him close. 

Sandor looked away from the intimate moment he was intruding on, readjusting himself to stare through the iron bars at the empty cells around them. He tried to turn his thoughts back to memories of warm nights, bellies full of wine, and tales Arya had come back from Braavos with. 

Time passed, but Sandor wasn’t sure how long. Long enough that when he opened his eyes again, Beric had moved to sit atop an overturned bucket, still close beside his hunched over priest who seemed keen on hiding with his misery in the shadows. 

“This what your lord had in mind, Dondarrion?” Sandor grumbled, looking at him out of the corner of his eye. 

Beric opened his mouth to say something but promptly closed it as they heard steps approaching. Lots of foot steps. 

“My scouts found them a mile south of the Wall, said they were on their way here,” Tormund was explaining to the group of men who lined up along the cell bars, watching them like livestock.

“You’re the Hound,” he heard from one of the men on the other side of the iron bars. It took everything he had not to wince at the name. 

‘ _I hate that people still call you the Hound. I wish I could show them that’s not you.’_

“I saw you once at Winterfell.” 

Winterfell…

Sandor made a face before slowly sitting up, squinting in the low light as he tried to recognize the face. He didn’t recognize the voice, not as someone who was there during his most recent stay. The dark haired man leaned closer to the bars, coming out of the shadows, and Sandor thought he might be sick. 

It was Jon fucking Snow, Arya’s half-brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small detail, but back in Sandor's third chapter, he mentioned seeing Jon in the training yard, which is how he knows what he looks like.
> 
> _"During the feast, he recalled the bastard son—now King in the North—brooding with a skin of wine in the training yard. He had felt a kinship to the boy then in some odd way, but he had kept to himself with his own skin of wine."_


	15. Arya VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya gets news that changes her plans. Sansa fails the game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _You must understand: they fear you. There is nothing scarier in their minds than a girl who knows the power of her flames._  
>  ― Nikita Gill

 

* * *

  

 

 

* * *

 

“Sometimes _fear_ makes them do unfortunate things. I’ll go with anger,” Arya spoke coolly, eyeing her sister once more before she made her way down the worn wooden steps. 

She knew Littlefinger would have ears and eyes everywhere; she’d seen him pay off a servant girl just days prior. As she walked through the yard, passing the stables, the kennels and the forge, she closely watched the people around her. What a pain in the ass it was going to be to clean up after Littlefinger. How many people could they truly trust? That one blonde girl would have to be dealt with, but how many others? Sansa surely would not be okay with Arya dealing with them in her own way, but by giving information to Littlefinger, they had committed acts of treason against the Starks and deserved some punishment.

Arya stepped through the kitchen doors, dodging servants as they bustled about and grabbed an apple from the prep table before making her way up the back stairs and down the rounded hall towards the Great Keep. She tossed it casually back and forth between her hands as she went. Approaching footsteps and hushed conversation caused her to duck swiftly into an alcove. 

“They was arguin’, m’lord,” a boy was saying. 

“What was the nature of this argument?” Littlefinger. Good, someone had heard them. Arya pressed herself into the stone of the alcove more, quirking her ear to listen as she gripped the piece of fruit tightly. 

“Somethin’ ‘bout a lett’r, m’lord. Lady Arya—”

“No names, boy.”

“Sorry, m’lord,” the boy sounded afraid. “One was pretty angry that the other ‘ad betrayed ‘er, the whole family. They went at it for a bit, Lady Sa—er, the older one made like the other shoulda been kissin’ ‘er feet for all she’d done. Don’t seem too good, m’lord.”

There was silence for a moment, only the dull thud of footsteps as they passed by her on their way down the hall. From her place in the alcove, Arya couldn’t get a good look at the boy, other than the dark, messy mop of hair on his head. She frowned, these kids were only doing this because it meant a coin in their pocket for their families. How dare this snake take advantage of them. 

“That’s good, boy,” Petyr sounded quite happy with himself. There was a faint rustling of fabric. “As promised. If you hear anything else, do come find me at once.”

“Y-yes, m’lord. Thank you, m’lord.” 

She heard the boy run off and tensed when the other set of footsteps didn’t sound. There was no way he would have known she was there unless she had wanted him to know. Juices from the apple she clenched too tightly ran down her fingers as she waited impatiently. 

The footsteps finally began again and vanished down the hallway. Moving slowly, Arya peeked out to ensure no one was there before continuing towards her chambers. 

Taking a loud bite of the apple, Arya entered the room and leaned heavily against the closed door. As she chewed, she looked around the room with a frown. 

It was just some room now, nothing special. There was no warmth from a long-burning fire, no cups sitting on the floor or an empty flagon of wine beside them. Her finger twitched as she recalled running them over his chest and shoulders, exploring his scars in such a timid, restrained manner. Oh, how she would explore them now. Arya chewed on her lip, wanting desperately to remember the feel and the taste of that moment in the Godswood some ten days prior, but all she found was the sweet stickiness of the fruit she ate. 

He had been the opposite of sweet, but she had never been one for sweets anyhow. His breath smelled of wine and dried venison, and his beard had the faint fragrance of wood fire and a musk that was his own. She knew those scents well; so many nights spent sitting beside him, falling asleep against him. 

‘ _Might have done us some good to have done that awhile back.’_

The dull, warm ache grew hotter and more present as she considered what would have happened if they had kissed much sooner. She’d barely known what he felt like, and she longed, constantly, to know once more. Were his hands as strong and unyielding as they looked? Would he grab her and move her small body the way he liked? Or would he be uncharacteristically gentle, caressing her softly, getting to know every dip and curve of her body? Arya had thought about his hands and teeth tearing into her, claiming her as she keened against him, begging for more. She imagined her hands finding new scars, lower on his thick, strong body that she had never noticed before, hidden beneath a thick dusting of dark hair and running her fingers over them slowly. Her fingers would dance below his waist band, finding the throbbing heat between his legs to stroke it, driving him mad until he couldn’t take it any longer and with a ‘seven hells, girl’ would flip her over and take her. 

She realized her grip was tight on the apple once more when she felt the wetness of it on her fingers, but all it did was remind her of the wetness between her legs that she had tried to ignore since she’d started having these thoughts. A wanton grin danced across her lips as she took another bite of the fruit. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t _done_ something about the growing heat she felt when she thought of him, it was just that she longed for something more than her skinny fingers could offer. Arya chewed on her lip as she let her mind wander once more.

She wondered if she would ever see him again. For all she knew, he was dead. No, she shook her head as she berated herself, he was stronger than that—if what happened on their journey through the Riverlands and the Vale hadn’t managed to kill him, a bit of snow would be no issue. 

At this point, he had to be close to Long Lake. Faint memories of stopping there when her father went to visit Last Hearth tried to surface, of warm summer days swimming in the cool waters, but the only thing she could picture was frigid snows and brown eyes. Perhaps one day they might visit together, if spring ever came again. She could imagine swimming, naked as their name days, in those crystal clear waters, happy, warm and relaxed. Arya wasn’t one to hope for things anymore, but she found herself holding on to that.

A knock on the door startled her and pulled her from her thoughts. What a damning effect he managed to have on her, even hundreds of miles away. Sighing, she pushed herself away from the door and turned to open it. Maester Wolkan stood there, shoulders hunched, looking down at her. Cowering seemed second nature to him and she wondered what happened when the Bolton’s had the castle. 

“Sorry to bother you, my lady, but your brother is calling for you and your sister in his chambers,” he said softly.

“Thank you, Wolkan,” she said, projecting a warm tone to show she was a friend and not a foe to the poor Maester. Wolkan smiled weakly at her before nodding and shuffling down the hall, the dull clang of his chains fading around the corner. 

Perhaps it was more Littlefinger news. It had been tough on Bran, not knowing exactly when or where things happened had meant he had to spend a lot of time just looking in random places, as though he’d misplaced a physical object in his chambers. Arya looked down at the browning apple she’d begun to eat with a frown before placing it on the table beside the door and making her way to her brother and sister.

 

* * *

“You cannot possibly think that is a good idea, Arya,” Sansa huffed at her. Delicate gloved hands sat perched on her belted waist; she was the perfect picture of a Lady. 

“Of course it’s not, but I’ve been prone to bad situations turning out for the best, so why stop now?” Arya shot her sister a sly grin from her place beside the hearth with Bran. 

He had just told them of their brother’s plans to leave Dragonstone to head to East Watch, the very place Sandor had gone. Jon’s intentions were to go north of the Wall to secure one of these dead men to prove to Cersei that the threat was real. That meant he was going to King’s Landing after, precisely where she had intended to go before she found out he was supposedly in Winterfell. _Destiny_ , a small voice in the back of her head whispered.

“He will be there in two weeks time,” Bran said as he stared vacantly into the flames. Arya couldn’t help but think of Sandor’s visions. He had avoided looking directly at fire since but she hadn’t had the guts to ask him if he had seen anything else.

“You won’t make it in time, even if you leave now,” Sansa pointed out, leaving her place by the window. The glow of the fire caught her hair, lighting it ablaze as she stood between the two of them. She continued in a quieter voice as she eyed the door. “Besides, we need you right now.”

Arya ignored her. “You don’t find it odd that they are all going to be in the same place at the same time?”

“Arya,” Sansa stared at her pointedly. “Just because the Hound and Jon are going to the same place does not mean you have to as well. What happened with you two, anyhow?”

_The Hound._ The name was a knife twisting in her gut, a feeling she knew too well. 

“They said their goodbyes alone in the Godswood the night before the Brotherhood departed,” Bran said, disaffected. “Under the heart tree they—”

“Shut _up_ , Bran. Seven hells. You manage to find out useless details like when we kissed but not the thing we need your help on?” She glared at her brother but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Did you just say you kissed the Hound?” Sansa looked down at her, aghast. 

“Stop calling him that,” Arya snapped, shooting her sister a dark look. 

Sansa composed herself, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath as she rubbed the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “ _Fine._ You kissed Sandor Clegane?” 

“Yes.” No sense lying about it, what was it to her anyway?

Sansa’s eyes scrunched up as she studied her sister. Arya didn’t like being put under such a critical stare. “Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘ _why_ ’?” Arya scoffed. “There are a lot of things that you don’t need to know about, despite how much you try to know everything.” 

“But he—”

“Kept me safe all those years ago,” Arya interrupted. “That’s _it._ ” She stood, visibly frustrated. 

“What are you doing?” Sansa huffed as she walked away.

“Ending this conversation,” she said plainly, making her way to the door. Perhaps Brienne or Podrick would be better company in the training yard. Less scrutinizing, that much she knew.

 

* * *

_The following day._

Arya had planned to go to her room to polish the dagger Bran had given her in preparation for its inevitable use, but had noticed Sansa making her way down a hallway she normally didn’t go down. The one that led to Arya’s chambers. Following her silently, she watched Sansa close the door slowly, listening as it creaked on rusted hinges. Arya’s brow twitched in anticipation. This was not part of the prescribed game, but would be a good lesson none the less. She knew her sister did not trust Littlefinger, but how well would she be able to fool him in order to figure out what his motives were?

Silently, she made her way towards her chamber door, not a sound on the stone floor. She listened for a moment through the door, as fabric was rustled and leather slid against stone. The sound of buttons popping on the satchel she kept under the bed, with her faces, told her it was time. Arya opened the door with practiced ease, avoiding the creaks with a measured grasp and quietly shut it behind her. Sansa was knelt beside her bed, holding a face in her hands.

“Not what you’re looking for?” Arya asked, the smallest smirk pulling at the corner of her lips.

Sansa sucked in a breath and frantically came to her feet, turning to her sister. Arya could see her pulse beating in her neck, watched as her skin turned red.

“I have hundreds of men here at Winterfell, all loyal to me,” Sansa blurted in defense.

“They’re not here now,” Arya pointed out, as she took a step closer. 

“What _are_ these?” Sansa tried to steady herself, her jaw tightening.

“My faces.” 

Sansa’s brow knit together as she processed her words. “Where did you get them?”

“In Braavos, while I was training to be a Faceless Man.” _And The Twins when I obliterated House Frey,_ she thought to herself smugly _._

“What does that mean?” 

Arya began approaching. “Back in Braavos, before I got my first face, there was a game I used to play, the Game of Faces. It’s simple: I ask you a question about yourself and you try to make lies sound like the truth. If you fool me, you win. If I catch a lie, you lose. Let’s play.”

“I don’t want to play.”

Arya ignored her and began walking around the table. The game had begun whether Sansa wanted it to or not.

“How do you feel about Jon being King? Is there someone else you think should rule the North instead?”

“Those faces—what _are_ they?” Sansa’s voice cracked in distress.

“You want to do the asking? Are you sure? The Game of Faces didn’t turn out so well for the last person who asked me questions.” She would never do to her sister what she did to the waif, but she also would not let her guard down like that again.

“Tell me what they are!” Sansa yelled, flustered.

Arya continued the game, her hands held firmly behind her back as she rounded the table once more. 

“We both wanted to be other people when we were younger. You wanted to be a queen, to sit next to a handsome young King on the Iron Throne. I wanted to be a knight, to pick up a sword like father and go off to battle. Neither of us got to be the other person, did we? The world doesn’t just let girls decide what they’re going to be. But I can now. With the faces, I can choose. I can become someone else, speak in their voice, live in their skin. I could even become you.” 

Not that she’d want to.

Without breaking eye contact with her sister, Arya picked up the dagger sitting on the table beside her. Slowly, she approached her sister. Perhaps a more obvious lie was needed for her sister to see.

“I wonder what it would feel like, to wear those pretty dresses. To be the Lady of Winterfell. All I’d need to find out, is your face.”

Arya stared up at Sansa for a moment, watching as her sister’s breaths got more erratic. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Arya knew she should feel bad for doing this to her sister, but years of forced ruthlessness made the thought disappear as soon as it came. It was about survival now.

She flipped the blade in her hand, watching as Sansa sucked in a harsh breath. Her sister watched her for a moment, before hesitantly taking the blade. _Protect yourself, sister._ Arya turned away, smirking to herself, and walked towards the door. The door creaked open this time as she stepped into the hallway, looking around for any listening ears. Seeing none, she turned back to her sister.

“You lost this game, Sansa. It’s a good thing I’m your sister and not your foe. If you want to win the game with Littlefinger, you’ll need to get better at seeing through people, at seeing their lies, no matter how good they are,” Arya insisted before turning swiftly on her heel and disappearing down the hall as silently as she’d come.


	16. Sandor VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trek north of the Wall begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _'He had got himself a life. Now he had to find a purpose in it.'_  
>  —Douglas Adams

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

Dancing flames seemed to hold Beric’s attention as they crackled quietly. Their camp was a modest one, with two small fires, four to a pit. Sandor wasn’t sure where in the Barrowlands they were, but was thankful for the scraggly pine trees that protected them from the falling snow out on the King’s Road. Behind him, Arya slept soundly. She had foolishly taken on Thoros in a ridiculous drinking game where she thought she’d actually win. Now both were rightly passed out. Sandor looked over his shoulder at her, watching the slow, steady movements beneath the furs. It was just him and Beric at the fire now, lost in their own thoughts, staring distantly into the night. Well, Sandor was staring into the darkness; he dared not look into the flames again, afraid of what he might see. 

“What’s with you and the priest?” he asked in an unusual moment of curiosity. He blamed it on his brief participation in the game earlier that evening.

Beric looked up from the flames, meeting his gaze with that one lone eye. It looked hollow, void of all light despite the glow of the fire dancing in it. He glanced to his side to where Thoros snored, his arm thrown over his eyes haphazardly. 

“Well?” Sandor growled quietly.

Beric chuckled to himself as he turned back to the flames. He stared at them a moment more before responding. “Did you feel like you lost a part of yourself when you almost died? When she left you to rot?” 

Sandor frowned. This was not where he had expected the answer to go. “Aye, a bit,” he said warily. 

“It’s tenfold when you truly die. Maybe a hundredfold. Whether it was a knife, an arrow, an axe, a hanging or even you damned Cleganes, it all ended the same. With death. With darkness. And when I come back from that darkness, thanks to whatever power the Lord of Light deems Thoros worthy of, I am a bit less each time. If it weren’t for him, I’m not sure I’d be on this path—we walk it together, as I believe our lord intended.”

“ _Your_ lord,” Sandor corrected. He’d lost count of how many times he had corrected them since their reunion.

“So you say,” the one-eyed lord said with a sad smile. Beric looked over to Thoros once again, his smile turning to a frown. “He reminds me of who I was, who I am, what I fight for. It’s not about me, or him, or any of us really, it’s about fighting the enemy to make the world a better place, to be better people. But I cannot fight if I don’t know what kind of person I am—was. He reminds me, both literally as well as through his mere presence, that having something close to your heart to fight for, that isn’t pure hate, really makes life worth living.”

“A life worth living,” Sandor scoffed, quietly, mostly to himself.

Beric stood after a somber moment, the audible crack in his joints bringing the smallest hint of a smirk to Sandor’s face. They were just a bunch of old men heading straight into death’s embrace with a wolf pup tagging along for the ride. Branches under Beric’s boots snapped as he began to move from the fire. He paused for a second, looking down at Thoros before turning back to Sandor. Nodding in the direction of where Arya slept, Beric spoke softly.

“Do _you_ have something to fight for, Clegane? Perhaps growing closer to your heart each day?”

 

* * *

Straw poked through his clothes as he laid down on the musty mattress in a chamber at East Watch. He didn’t care, he was just happy to be sleeping in a bed for once. Anything was better than the damned bench he’d made home for the last three nights, the scent of urine and feces unpleasantly close by. Thoros and Beric were fortunately no longer his bunkmates, where he had been an unwilling bystander to their shared affections between the priest’s bouts of delusion, anger and vomit. It wasn’t that he cared that the two men were together, more than anything it simply reminded him of what could have been, of what he’d left behind. 

Instead, for the night, he had been bunked with a young, dark haired lad named Gendry. The boy, a smith from Flea Bottom he learned, kept to himself so far, shivering something fierce as he clutched the unnecessarily ornate hammer he’d brought with him. Sandor still wasn’t sure why the kid was with them; a smith had no place up here.

“I know you,” Gendry finally said, as Sandor laid on the opposite side of the sparse room on a cot too small for someone his size. “It took me a second, but I figured it out. You were captured by the Brotherhood when me and some friends were with ‘em.”

Sandor looked over at the lad without turning his head from its place on the thin pillow. A long, heavy breath left his nostrils as he waited for the boy to continue. He didn’t recognize the whelp.

“You killed my friend’s friend, that’s why you were on trial. You killed Beric,” he remembered, shaking his finger at him as the memory came back. 

“Arya?” Sandor tried to hide the interest that bubbled within.

“How do you know her name?” Gendry sat up in the bed more, grasping his hammer tightly as it sat across his knees.

Sandor let out a low bark of a laugh, turning back to stare at the ceiling. How did he _know_ her? Where to begin? Her smell, her laugh, that impish glimmer in her eyes, her touch. It ran through his head constantly.

“I know a lot more than her name, boy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He sounded defensive. What was it to him, when had he last seen her?

“The she-wolf and I traveled together for quite some time,” Sandor said, closing his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Why were you traveling together?” _For fuck’s sake._

“Would you _shut up_? This is the first real night of sleep I’ll have gotten in some time, and I won’t see it again soon enough. I’m not about to let some yapping whelp ruin it for me,” Sandor grumbled, shifting against the mattress to get comfortable. 

“I’m not yapping,” the boy said defiantly. He was silent for a beat, before sniffing. “She’s alive, you know. Jon was telling me he got word that she’s back in Winterfell.”

“Aye, I brought her home two moons ago,” Sandor said, noting the remorse in his own voice. 

“How is she?” Gendry prodded after a moment.

“Safe,” Sandor snapped, turning on his side, away from the boy. “Now, shut the fuck up before I make you.” 

 

* * *

The moment the northern gate at East Watch went up, the wind whipped snow into the tunnel angrily, howling as it passed the entrance. It was almost as if the weather on the other side of the wall was in a completely different climate, hundreds of miles further north. South of the Wall was not nearly this bad, yet all that stood in the way was a 700 foot high wall of ice. Sandor guessed that was enough. The men braced themselves as they made their way towards the entrance, mentally preparing for this ill-advised mission. 

Jon Snow came to a stop at the gate. He stood quiet and still for a moment, before turning to look back, getting a readying nod from the two men behind him, Jorah and Tormund. The two of them looked at each other before turning back to look at Beric and Gendry, who turned to Thoros before they all turned to look at Sandor. 

Sandor watched the men as they began turning towards him, realizing that every single one of them were walking towards their deaths. How in seven hells he ended up with a group of men—most of whom knew Arya, oddly enough—on a mission to find one of these dead men was beyond him. If he could do it all over again, he wonder just how far back he would have to go to change things so that none of this happened. Would not fighting Brienne change all of this? Would the girl and him still be together, somewhere in Essos by now? Did he have to go back to before he captured her? Or was all of this meant to happen for a reason? Was he meant to almost die so he could be given another chance? Was he meant to run into Arya Stark after years of them thinking the other was likely dead? _Fucking destiny._

None of that matter now, Sandor realized as he finally looked up at Thoros, who held up his skin of rum in salute. It was no time for jokes, but perhaps the priest had a good idea—get drunk and you don’t have to think about how stupid this all was. 

He should have stayed in Winterfell like the she-wolf wanted.

 

* * *

Sandor was exhausted. It felt like they were going in circles. Into the trees, back out again through rocky hills, back into the trees, and back out again. They’d been at it for two days now, with no dead men in sight. He stepped carefully over the icy terrain, keeping to himself at the back of the group. 

“Bloody hell, this thing is going to _freeze_ to my skin,” Thoros complained as he dipped his hand into the furs he was wearing to adjust the steel breast plate. 

“That _thing_ is going to keep you alive,” Beric started.

“Aye, what would you do with me?” Thoros winked, taking a drink of rum. He turned and offered it to Sandor, who scowled and shook his head. “It’ll keep ye warm.”

“I’m plenty warm,” Sandor lied.

Thoros shrugged and turned around, coming up beside Gendry.

“You still mad at us, boy?” 

“You _sold_ me to a witch,” Gendry snapped at him.

“A priestess,” Thoros corrected, raising the rum in honor. “I’ll admit it is a subtle distinction.”

“We’re fighting the great war,” Beric added. “Wars cost money.”

“I wanted to be one of you,” Gendry whined, pulling his hood down to get a better look at Beric. “I wanted to join the Brotherhood, but you sold me off. Like a slave. Do you know what she did to me?”

Beric turned, waiting for him to continue. It must not have been too bad if he was still alive. 

“She strapped me down on a bed, she stripped me naked—”

“Sounds alright so far,” Sandor interjected. 

“And put _leeches_ on me,” Gendry continued with a huff. 

“Was she naked too?” Sandor goaded. He was learning to take pleasure in the small things in life.

“She needed your blood,” Thoros explained, ignoring Sandor’s remarks. 

“Yes, thank you, I know that!”

“Could’ve been worse,” Sandor pointed out, coming up beside the whelp.

“She wanted to kill me!” he cried, exasperated, coming to a stop. “In fact she would have killed me if it weren’t for Davos—”

“But she _didn’t_ , did she?” Sandor eyed him, a grin ghosting it’s way on his cold lips. “So what ye whingin’ about?”

“I’m not whinging.”

“Yer lips are moving,” he pointed to the smith’s face. “And you’re complaining about something. That’s whinging.” 

Sandor didn’t have the patience for this. _Leeches, pfft. Try falling off a cliff sometime, boy. Or actually dying, like Beric had._

“This one’s been killed six times,” he pointed to Beric in a huff. “You don’t hear him bitchin’ about it.” 

Sandor walked past them, limping slightly from the cold that seeped through his still-aching leg. It was a constant reminder of his second chance. Fucking brat couldn’t see, even now, that things were so much bigger than a few damned leeches.

He continued forward as the winds began to pick up. They would be camping in the open tonight, no trees for shelter. The trees were a blessing and a curse, for they protected them from the elements, but made patrol duty more difficult. Sandor had taken to staying past his shift, covering for other men, simply so he didn’t have to sleep. Because when he slept, he dreamt of things that might never happen—no, would never happen. At first they had fueled him, pushed him forward as a measure of hope. But hope had the ability to cloud one’s vision and right now, at least while north of the Wall, Sandor needed to have a clear head.

 

* * *

“You’re the one they call the dog,” Tormund grinned as he came up to him. The boisterous man had left him alone for the most part, and he was happy for it. 

“Fuck off,” he growled as he retied the lace of the wildling boot he wore. They were clunky, but kept his feet from _completely_ freezing. 

Tormund’s grin widened. “They told me you were mean. Were you born mean or do you just hate wildlings?” 

“I don’t give two shits about wildlings,” Sandor said, looking up. The man’s red hair was splayed every which way from the unrelenting wind. “It’s gingers I hate.”

“Gingers are _beautiful_ ,” Tormund smirked, leaning in. “We’re kissed by fire, just like you.” 

A large finger came inches from his face and he smacked it away. 

“Don’t point your fucking finger at me,” he snapped, before turning to catch up with the group.

The hidden sun was beginning to set on their second day of scouting and with their zig-zagging, Sandor figured they were about 25 miles from the Wall. They could have been two miles from the Wall, and if he couldn’t see it, he wouldn’t have been able to tell someone how to get out of this frozen hell. 

“Did you trip into the fire when you were a baby?” He heard Tormund call as he caught up with him. 

“I didn’t trip, I was pushed,” Sandor sighed. He hadn’t told anyone about that since he told Arya back in the Vale.

“Ever since, you’ve been mean,” the wildling deduced. 

“Will you fuck off?” Sandor growled.

“I don’t think you’re truly mean, you have sad eyes.”

Frustrated with the man’s incessant badgering, Sandor finally stopped, sure he would be able to get him off his back with one simple question. 

“Do you want to suck my dick, is that it?”

Tormund blinked. “Dick?”

“Cock,” Sandor sighed. _Fucking wildlings._

“Ah.. dick. I like it,” he nodded. 

“Bet you do,” Sandor sneered, continuing to walk.

“Nope, it’s pussy for me,” Tormund said proudly. “I have a beauty waiting for me in Winterfell.”

Winterfell… He too had a beauty; a precocious, deadly, calculated, complicated, just as fucked in the head as him beauty that he’d do anything to see, if only once more. Sandor cared about her, he had for a long time, before she showed any interest in anything other than a friendship, but that one moment in the Godswood seemed to open the floodgates on feelings he’d had bottled up for years. Yet here he stood, hundreds of miles away from her, walking towards certain death, instead of holding her, kissing her…

“Yellow hair, blue eyes… Tallest woman you’ve ever seen,” Tormund went on. “Almost as tall as you.”

Sandor came to a stop. It couldn’t be. “Brienne of Tarth.”

“You know her?” Tormund asked excitedly.

“You’re with Brienne of _fucking_ Tarth?” Sandor scoffed. 

“Well,” the wildling admitted, “we’re not together yet. But I see the way she looks at me.”

“The way she looks at you,” Sandor began. He knew that look all too well. “Like she wants to carve you up and eat your liver?”

“You _do_ know her,” Tormund grinned salaciously. 

“We’ve met.” Fist to face, knee to groin, grasping at that fucking Valyrian steel sword like it his life depended on it, not even aware of the pain, because it was for her. For Arya. 

“I want to make babies with her,” Tormund continued. “Think of them! Great big monsters! They’d conquer the world!” 

“How did a mad fucker like you live this long?”

“I’m good at killing people,” Tormund smirked as they continued up the hill. 

Sandor walked in silence for the remainder of the day, keeping to himself the best he could. He felt a pull to stay near Jon though, a protective need as though if something were to happen, Arya would blame him. Try as he might, whether it was his attempts not to sleep or counting the steps of the man in front of him to distract himself, he couldn’t get his mind off her. 

She had dug her way into his heart unknowingly, and as Beric had said months ago as they made their way to Winterfell, she might be something worth fighting for. Sandor knew that if he was so lucky as to see her again, he wouldn’t let her out of his sight, that he would protect her whether she needed it or not. _Gods, for just one more touch, one more word, the things I’d do._

 

* * *

Night fell and rotations began. His first shift came in the middle of the night, with Jon. Despite spending two days together already, Sandor had not found the right moment to speak with him, and didn’t really know what to say to begin with. The man was brooding, quiet, and focused. Not that Sandor complained in the slightest. 

They stood watch back to back for close to an hour in silence, lost in their own dark thoughts before Sandor finally spoke. 

“I know your sister.”

“You were Joffrey’s shield, I imagine you spent a lot of time with Sansa,” Jon said, not looking away from the gaping blackness in front of him. 

“Aye, but it was a blink of an eye compared to the time I spent with Arya,” he shifted on his feet, taking the weight off his bad leg. “Came across her in the Riverlands, had a long journey together.”

Jon looked over at him but said nothing. The bastard was worse at conversation than he was.

“I found her running away from Beric and Thoros, if you can believe it,” he scoffed. “To be honest, my intention was to sell her back to her family, but that didn’t go so well, a number of times. First to the Twins, then to the Eyrie. We spent a good deal of time together and I came to know her pretty well, the pain in the ass that she was,” he barked out a small, nervous laugh. Why was he telling him all this?

“She uh.. she talked a lot about you, she really missed you. _Misses_ you. We were separated after some time, but ran into each other once more a few moons back.”

“She’s home,” Jon said quietly. 

“Aye, she is. I made certain of it before I came up here. She’s strong, that one. Deadly.” _Beautiful._

Jon looked over at him, the smallest proud smile tugging the corner of his lips.

“Arya was always a fighter, liked to get her hands dirty. Glad to see she hasn’t changed,” he turned back to the darkness.

“She’s changed a great deal,” Sandor frowned as he recalled just how dirty her hands had gotten over the years. No thanks to his lessons. “One thing that hasn’t changed though, is that little sword you gave her. Needle,” he chuckled to himself as he said its ridiculous name. “She’s gotten quite good with it. Bested me once or twice.”

“You sound proud,” Jon noted, looking back over. There was the faintest glimmer of warmth in his eyes now, illuminated by the moon.

“I suppose I am,” Sandor admitted with the smallest smirk as he looked out into the darkness. 

He _was_ proud of her, sure, but it went beyond pride.  She had become his reason for being up here. She was his hope.  Hope for a life not filled with death and fear. Of helping one another overcome the lives of fighting that they’d been forced into. And of course there was the attraction. The warmth he felt in so many places when he thought about her. Her touch, her smell, her innocently whispered words in the middle of the night as they would lie next to each other, both pushing away the inevitable. Not that he could, or _would_ , say that to her half-brother. 

“I can’t wait to see her again,” Jon said after some time. He sounded sad, as though it wouldn’t actually happen. 

“Aye, me too,” Sandor echoed, catching Jon’s glance. 

Jon looked at him for a moment as though he were studying Sandor’s intentions before giving him the slightest nod and turning back to the darkness. He wasn’t a man of many words, this one. They continued their time together in silence before his double shift finally ended and it was time to face his dreams once more.


	17. Arya IX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stark siblings learn just how deep the betrayal goes. Arya makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And I'm just a child so lost in his way._   
>  _I'm broken, bruised, naked and covered in shame._   
>  _I'm broken, bruised and covered in shame._   
>  _I need your weight for my soul._   
>  _I'm so afraid you'll let me go._   
>  _—Subtle Weight, Foreign Fields_

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

Arya sat impatiently on the edge of Bran’s bed, running her bare fingers through the furs beneath her. Memories of nights passed, of furs tickling her neck as she whispered secrets to Sandor flitted behind her eyes as she closed them. A sad smile ghosted across her lips. Ten days had passed since he had left, and she couldn’t help but hold a bit of dread over his absence. She wondered how he was faring on the journey north.

Bran gasped as his eyes went from white to brown.

“Welcome back,” she said dryly.

“That wasn’t very nice you know,” Bran said with little affect.

“What wasn’t?” Arya cocked a thick brow his way.

“What you did to Sansa. Your Game of Faces.”

“You were listening?”

Bran just stared at her. If the boy showed any signs of emotion, she would have thought he was mocking her.

“I had no intentions of harming her in any way. I was simply trying to teach her a lesson on lying,” she shrugged. “Sansa is no longer the silly little girl she once was but Littlefinger is cunning and far better at this game than she is. Where is she anyhow?”

“In her chambers with Littlefinger. They’re discussing the letter and what exactly you’re after.”

Arya smirked. “And?”

“She’s convincing him.”

“Good.”

“There’s more. About Littlefinger.”

Arya swallowed the lump in her throat as she sat down beside Bran. “We should wait for Sansa.”

When finally Sansa arrived, she did so with Maester Wolkan in tow. He nodded to the Stark children and slowly shut the door.

“What’s he doing here?” Arya made a face.

“Wolkan is the only one I can trust outside of you two. I’ve asked him to watch the door while we talk,” Sansa walked over to where they sat near the hearth.

“You were with Littlefinger just now,” Arya pointed out.

“Yes. He believes you are planning to kill me so that you can become Lady of Winterfell.”

Arya let out a hearty laugh at the idea. “Me? Lady of Winterfell? Seven help us all.” 

Bran looked over at Sansa with dull eyes. “‘Sometimes, I play a little game. I assume the worst. What’s the worst reason they could possibly have, for saying what they say, and doing what they do? Then I ask myself, does that reason explain—’”

“‘—what they say, and what they do,’” Sansa finished. 

“Well, what is the worst possible thing he could do?” Arya’s fingers picked at the wood arm of the chair absently. 

“He could want the North.”

“That’s why he was talking to some of Northern lords in private… He wants us to fight amongst ourselves.”

“Like he did with Aunt Lysa and mother,” Sansa frowned.

“Littlefinger had Aunt Lysa poison Jon Arryn. With tears of Lys,” Bran interjected.

“I remember that from Braavos. It’s completely odorless, tasteless—it leaves no trace at all,” Arya added.

Bran continued. “Aunt Lysa’s letter to mother, saying the Lannisters had killed Jon Arryn—”

“He wanted Stark and Lannister against each other too,” Sansa sighed as she paced the room. “Did he have anything to do with father?”

“Father found out that Joffrey was a bastard and intended on seeing that the true heir, Stannis Baratheon, was given the crown when Robert died. Father wanted Littlefinger’s word that, as the Master of Coin, he would see to it that the City Watch backed him when he denied the Lannister’s the throne.”

“But that’s not what happened… Father was captured…”

“Yes. The gold cloaks sided with the queen and killed all of the Stark bannermen, taking father.”

“That’s why the kingsguard came for me. Why they killed Syrio,” Arya clutched at the hilt of Needle. Meryn Trant’s death flashed before her eyes. 

“He didn’t want to lose his place as Master of Coin. Some power is better than no power, and Stannis would have seen fit to replace every member of the council,” Sansa speculated. 

“It’s like he was just climbing up, one step at a time,” Arya snorted as she rolled her eyes in disbelief.

“A ladder. He once told Varys, ‘Chaos is a ladder.’” Bran still had not looked from the fire. Heavy, dark bags were under his eyes, contrasting with the hollowing, pale skin of his face.

“Father died so Littlefinger could keep his job,” Arya grimaced.

“Then he pushed Aunt Lysa out of the moondoor so he could become Protector of the Vale until Robin is old enough,” Sansa added.

“And now he wants to become Warden of the North, I bet. With you by his side,” Arya tipped her head in her sister’s direction. 

“So what now?” Sansa’s fingers anxiously twisted the fabric of her skirts.

“‘What now’? We kill the bastard. It’s his fault father is dead. Everything that has happened to us since we left Winterfell years ago can be traced back to him,” Arya stood, turning frantically towards her sister. “If father hadn’t been captured, Robb wouldn’t have marched south, then he and mother would still be alive…”

She shook her head. Blood pounded in her ears. Rubbing her hands together she felt how warm and clammy her skin had gotten. Everything. It had _all_ started with Littlefinger.

“Let me kill him,” Arya growled as she fingered the dagger. “I’ll slice his throat with his own blade.”

Sansa raised her hands in protest, moving between her sister and the door. “Arya, slow down. If we just kill him, think of how that will look. What will the Northern lords and our own men think of that? Word has gotten around of Bran’s abilities, we give him a proper trial. As judge, jury, and executioner.”

Arya huffed. Sansa: always worried about what other’s thought of her. She supposed she had a point, why make waves amongst the men she—they—needed for the coming wars. At the end, she would still be the one to take that final breath from him. 

“Fine.”

 

* * *

Her fingers twitched on the pommel of the dagger as she polished it. Arya had hoped Sansa would gather everyone in the Great Hall immediately, but she had waited. Almost a full day had gone by where Arya had to live beneath the same roof as a man she knew had schemed to kill half her family. 

Waves danced within the steel of the blade as she held it to the light, inspecting it’s sharp edge. Burying Valyrian steel into flesh was not something she had the pleasure of experiencing, and she found herself vibrating with anticipation over doing just that to Littlefinger. 

There was a loud knock on her chamber door.

“Lady Sansa is requesting your presence in the Great Hall, m’lady,” a guard announced quietly, before clearing his throat and standing taller, as though to assert himself. Arya smirked. 

“Of course,” she said coolly, rising from her place at the table. With a crisp, satisfying click, she placed it back in its sheath and made her way out the door. 

The sea of eyes that watched her as she made her way into the Great Hall did not know what was about to happen. Only the Starks knew. Once the charges were leveled against Littlefinger, Arya was confident they would see him for what he was: a scheming, slimy snake of a man who only thought of himself, who lied his way to the top, only to want more and more. It took everything Arya had to not rush him the moment she saw him, standing in his usual place, smirking at her smugly, as though he knew what all this was. Oh, how little he knew. 

She stood in the center of the room, glancing around at its occupants. Yohn Royce of the Vale stood amongst the Stark men who surrounded her. At last she came upon Littlefinger, whose expression had not changed since she walked in. He believed her to be on trial. 

It was delicious; seeing that look on his face when he realized he was no longer winning the game was a treat Arya had not expected would taste so good. It had been her turn, then, to be smug.

“My sister asked you a question,” she shot him his smirk right back. It wasn’t _Lady Stark_ or _Lady Sansa_ , it was her sister. Her sister who had been through hell at the hands of this man. They all had in their own way. 

“You held a knife to his throat. You said, ‘I did warn you not to trust me,’” Bran added when Petyr argued that no one was there to see what happened. 

“You told our mother, this knife belonged to Tyrion Lannister.” Arya drew the blade from its sheath. “But that was another one of your lies. It was yours.”

As he pleaded his case to Sansa, Arya moved over to join the men along the side. She watched as he tried to escape with the help of the Vale, before he came to his knees in the middle of the room, begging forgiveness. The dim winter light caught the tears that had begun to fall down Sansa’s face and Arya realized just how strong her sister had to be in this moment, how strong she had to be to have survived these last few years. 

“When you brought me back to Winterfell, you told me there’s no justice in the world, not unless we make it,” Sansa said steadily. 

She looked over at Arya. Arya looked over at Petyr. 

“Thank you for all your many lessons, Lord Baelish. I will never forget them.”

Like a hot knife through butter, the steel had slid through his flesh with surprising ease. A suffering death would have been Arya’s preferred method, but Sansa had insisted it be quick. None the less, she enjoyed watching him bleed out on the cold stone floor and could finally breath easy knowing the threat within their walls was gone.

 

* * *

It had been just like any other night since she had returned to Winterfell. And yet it wasn’t. 

A silence had fallen over them now that the wine was gone. Dimming light from the hearth cast faint shadows across the dark room. Arya laid on the bed with her arm tucked under the pillow as she stared at the glowing coals. Strands of soft fur twisted between the skinny fingers of her other arm as it dangled half off the bed’s edge.

“Do you ever miss home?” she asked hesitantly as she peered down to where he laid on the floor with his arms crossed behind his head. His eyes were closed.

Sandor scoffed bitterly. “There’s nothing to miss.”

“What was it like?” 

“Home was torture,” he said pointedly, looking up at her. “Home was pain, hate, fear.” 

“It couldn’t have always been bad, right? Don’t you remember before Gregor became mean?”

Sandor chewed on his lip, a dark expression on his face. He turned his eyes from her gaze above. 

“I remember my lady mother,” he smiled distantly. “She was a kind woman, who would sing to me when I was afraid. The last time I saw her, I was running through a hall too quickly and thought I could jump the seven steps that led down to the courtyard.”

He shook his head, a sad smile on his face as he closed his eyes. She saw him take a big swallow, watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed beneath the thick hair on his neck. Arya loved that hair and longed to run her fingers through it, to press soft kisses to it. 

“Well, I didn’t land too well,” he chuckled to himself. “Busted m’self up pretty good, bleeding all over the stone. And I’m crying like a godsdamned baby—”

“You _were_ a baby!” 

“Not to Gregor. He walked by, unfazed, and told me if I didn’t quit crying he’d throw me in the river with a sack of rocks on my feet. Mother came through shortly after, and I was just there on the floor, biting my lip to the point of bleeding so I wouldn’t end up in that fucking river. She was so gentle, so tender… She rushed to me and carefully checked to see I hadn’t broken anything before she pulled me close. ‘No worries, little one, they’re only surface wounds,’ she said to me. ‘You’ll carry their story on the outside but they won’t be buried in your heart. Those are the ones you must be careful of.’”

He paused for a moment. “She wouldn’t be around when Gregor shoved me into the fire, to see that some surface wounds can run deep.”

Arya blinked back the wetness that had formed. She knew he had a family at one point, but to know how loving his mother was, how wise she had been as she tried to instill goodness in her son’s heart made Arya ache something fierce. 

“What happened to her?” Arya asked, her voice cracking. Her hand had fallen off the edge of the bed, dangling absently as she stared over at the hearth.

“I don’t know,” Sandor said sadly. “Whatever it was, I’m sure it was Gregor, and I’m sure she suffered. The last time I felt her touch, she carried me to the maester to get patched up. Once she knew I was okay, she kissed my forehead and left me with the old man as though it were any other moment, off to see to the household my father neglected. My money is on the river.” He scoffed, shaking his head, as if in disbelief.

A silence fell upon them. It was normal for their conversations to go to the darker places of their hearts after a bit too much to drink, but until now, his stories had only been of the Lannisters, of his history of gore and death and violence. It was Arya who spoke up first, apprehensively.

“Do you remember when you told me about how you got your scars? ‘You think you’re on your own,’ you said, in your miserable state,” she laughed. “The best I could do at the time was to offer to help with that nasty wound but your words have stuck with me for years…You don’t have to be on your own anymore, if you don’t want to be.” 

Arya laid there on the pillow, her arm still hanging over the edge of the bed. Sounds, like the crackling of those lingering coals, or her own breath, suddenly felt like they were shouting as she waited silently for something, anything from him. But it didn’t come.

“I’m home,” she whispered when she couldn’t take the quiet anymore. “You could be home too, Sandor.”

Calloused fingers brushed against her dangling hand, causing her to almost jerk away in surprise. Low in her belly, an increasingly familiar warmth began to burn again. Only a few nights ago he had flinched from her touch, yet now he was the one touching her. Perhaps there was hope after all. A tentative digit ran along the edge of her fingertips a few times before tracing the underside of her fingers on its way to her palm. A shiver ran through her body and she bit her lip. His finger continued its exploration until it reached her thumb. With a gentle touch, he grasped her thumb in his large hand, holding it like he might a butterfly he was afraid to crush. Arya’s own hand closed around his as best it could and she squeezed lightly. _Home._

 

* * *

Arya stared out into the white nothingness that extended forever in front of them. North. She needed to go further north, to Jon. To Sandor. Being a lone wolf was something she had been for as long as she could remember, but she wanted a pack and part of it wasn’t here. Arya had to go to them. 

“I’ve never seen someone look so lost at home,” Sansa said as she came up to stand beside her. The wind rustled their cloaks gently, as light snow danced down from the grey sky.

“I need to go,” her voice cracked as she met her sister’s glance. 

“Are you certain?” 

“I am,” she said solemnly. “You are safe now. Winterfell is safe now. What is there left for me to do here? Let me take leave, rather than simply stand watch over Winterfell; you have plenty of men for that.”

“Arya, you don’t know that they are even there,” Sansa tried to reason. “Do you really want to make that long journey, alone, with no guarantee that they’ll be there?”

She was conflicted, she could admit that. Constant movement and change had driven her for so long and a small part of her was afraid of what not moving would mean. It had already been dull in a comfortable sort of way since she returned, but it had become painfully dull, other than dealing with Littlefinger, since Sandor had left. 

When she thought about the prospect of seeing him once more, her stomach seemed to drop and twist at the same time and she hated it. She hated being constantly consumed by this desire for someone she once had wanted dead, who she thought had been dead. This lack of control over her emotions that he seemed to bring out drove her mad; and she was certain it was the same with him. Arya had never claimed to be a patient person; she couldn’t just sit about Winterfell, sewing by the fire until her handsome knight came home to her. The idea alone made her laugh.

“I’m used to traveling alone, this will be no different. Maybe colder,” Arya smirked as she looked over to her sister. She became more serious after a beat. “I have to. Sansa, there’s a tug—this deep, aching need to do this. It’s supposed to be the next step for me.”

Memories of nights long passed came to mind, of warm rooms, quiet conversation and fleeting touches. Arya had once promised him he had a home but she realized, to her, it needn’t be one place within four walls. He had been her home once long ago when he was the only thing protecting her, and he could be her home once more. She could be his. As long as they were together, she felt like she was home. It was sickening, maddening and yet she couldn’t shake it.

“When will you leave?”

“First light.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is making use of some timeline fuckery — Just because an event seems sequential doesn't mean it is. In the case of Arya and Sandor's now-divergent storylines, Arya is only about 10 days into their separation while Sandor is about a month out, with a few flashbacks thrown in there for good measure. <3


	18. Sandor IX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey beyond the Wall continues. With loss, Sandor finds clarity.

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

Icy snow stung his face as they trudged forward slowly, directly into the wind. Soon enough they’d have to make camp as the dark sky grew even darker. Three days had gone by and still, no sign of the dead.

“Look,” Tormund stopped. Sandor squinted and began to make out a large dark shape.

“A bear,” Jorah said. Good thing they had a Mormont with them. Sandor would have been amused had the situation been any different. 

“Big fucker,” he called over the howling winds.

“Do bears have blue eyes?” he barely heard Gendry ask. 

The snows and winds picked up and Sandor lost sight of both the bear and the scout. All he heard was the howling wind and—wait no, that was a bear growling, and it was getting louder. The men drew their swords as they heard the scout scream. The giant dead beast ran past them with the man in his mouth and Jon took chase. When they happened upon bloody snow a few steps away, the men huddled together, swords drawn, backs to each other as they waited for the creature’s next move.

Its attack was sudden as it picked off another scout. Bloody cries and crunching bones were all Sandor heard. He watched as Jon ran right towards the damned thing in an attempt to save the man but the bear reared, swatting Jon so hard he was flung through the air. 

Sandor rushed to his side. “You okay?” he yelled over the screaming, growling, and whipping winds. 

Jon gasped as the air came back to his lungs. He let out the breath he’d been holding, in relief. Sandor held his hand out, helping Snow to his feet. In the corner of his eye, he saw those fucking flaming swords making their way towards the beast. Fire and dragonglass, Jon had said. Fucking fire. Beric swung at the beast but all it did was turn it into an angry fiery bear. It turned towards Sandor with a growl.

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit._ He was frozen, unable to move. This was going to be it, killed by a flaming dead bear. They’d sing stories about the craven man who shat himself as he was devoured by a great fiery beast. No, of course they wouldn’t, because no one would care about any of this. Sandor blinked and watched in a daze as the bear raised to its hind legs to attack. He knew he should do something, had to if he wanted to survive, but he felt like he was stuck in the mire of a nasty bog. 

Squeezing his eyes shut, she was before him. He heard her laugh in the Eyrie, felt her fingers on his bloody neck, saw her tears as they were reunited, watched the light of the hearth dance across her cheeks as she slept and felt her kiss upon his lips. Sandor held her close as they laid in bed, her tiny body wracking with the painful sobs of a broken soul.

Then he was eating snow as Thoros pushed him out of the way. Sandor watched as the bear latched onto the flaming sword as though it had no effect. He could hear the priest’s grunts as he tried to fight it off. The man was going to die for him if he didn’t get up… but his legs were heavy and everything seemed to move in slow motion. 

The dead bear ripped the sword out of Thoros’s grip and tried to bite down on his chest. Steel met teeth in a vicious clang. As the bear reared up to attack again, Sandor felt someone push by him and watched as Jorah shoved a dragonglass dagger into the beast’s side. With a horrible screech, it fell to the cold ground. 

Sandor came to his feet as the one-eyed lord crouched beside the priest. Thoros hissed angrily as Beric pulled the dented plate from his chest. Standing behind them, Sandor could see the blossoming blue and purple bruises where the beast’s teeth had shoved the metal into his chest.

“I told you you’d be glad you had this on,” Beric smiled, handing the priest his flask. 

“Aye,” Thoros took a long pull of rum, “what would _I_ do without _you_?” He flashed Beric a toothy grin before sitting up to adjust himself. 

It was going to be a long, cold night.

 

* * *

Sandor picked his way over the icy terrain, grumbling to himself about how sick he was of seeing so much white and grey. If he never saw a snow bank again, it would be too soon. Tormund caught his eye and flashed him a crazed grin as he slowed to catch pace. He held out a flask. 

“Sour goat’s milk, none of that piss you Southerners drink.” 

Sandor turned his nose up at the offering, but realized it had been three days since he’d last had a drink. Ale, with the simple meal of stew and brown bread the night before they left East Watch. He wretched the vessel from the red-head’s grasp and took a heavy swig. 

“It’s about as good as that shite you all brew back at the Wall,” he grumbled. “But it’s better than nothing.” 

Nodding his thanks, he handed the flask back to Tormund. 

“I saw your eyes light up when I mentioned Brienne of Tarth.”

“No. You didn’t.”

“Aye, I did. You got a thing for her, too?” Tormund looked him up and down, as though to size up his competition. 

Sandor scoffed. “Hardly. Bitch tried to kill me once.”

“Amazing, isn’t she?” Tormund squinted at him. “Something about Winterfell, then, eh?”

“Would you fuck off?”

“Might you have a beauty too? Word has it you know the Stark sisters pretty well. Is it the ginger?”

“No. It’s not the _ginger_.”

“The other one then.”

“I said fuck off.”

“It _is_ the other one,” Tormund eyed him salaciously. “Jon Snow might not take too kindly to you stuffing his little sister.” 

“I’m not _stuffing_ his little sister, for fuck’s sake,” he growled.

“Sure, you’re not.”

Tormund grinned ear to ear as Sandor grabbed the flask out of his hands once more. It would be their last moment of calm before all hell broke loose. 

 

* * *

Leaves rustled in the trees of the Godswood that surrounded them. In the fading light, Sandor watched as a red leaf from the weirwood floated down to land in the center of the frozen pool beside them.

“Aye, but you’re more important,” Sandor mumbled into Arya’s hair as he held her close. In the morning, he would begin his journey to East Watch.

“If that’s the case, then stay here. Help here _,_ ” she pleaded against his chest, her arms tightening around his waist.

“Killing’s the only thing I know. I tried once to let it go, to stay in one place and begin a life. A lotta good that did me,” he ran his hand through her hair.

“Ever since father was killed, all I’ve known is brutal survival. But there has to be something after that right?” Arya had pulled away and looked up at him. Her steel grey eyes gave him chills in the dim light of the setting sun.

“Aye. Death.”

“Before death,” she scoffed. “ _I_ don’t know what that is, _you_ don’t know what that is. We stumbled through things together before, we could stumble through this too?”

“Let’s take it one step at a time, girl.”

“What are you so afraid of?” 

“’m not afraid of anything.” Except something happening to her.

“That I doubt.”

Sandor bent down to press a kiss to her forehead. “I’m leaving in the morning, girl, and I need ye to be okay with that.”

“Why does it matter if I’m okay with it? I’ve been trying to get you to stay for weeks.”

“Aye, yer as stubborn as a damned mule in that regard.” He pulled back and held her at arms length. “I don’t want you doing anything stupid because I’m leaving.”

“I can’t promise that.” 

“Of course you can’t,” he smirked as he looked over her defiant face. “Keep yer sister safe, help her around Winterfell.”

“Sounds boring.”

“Sounds like what comes after killing,” he shrugged.

“Be bored with me, then,” she whispered.

“That’s a promise _I_ can’t make.” 

The words stuck in his throat as he tipped her chin up to kiss her once more. As her arms snaked their way around his neck, he briefly forgot what the morning would bring.

 

* * *

Sandor held a large, smooth stone in his hand, tossing it back and forth as he watched the dead across the lake. This was not how he expected things would go.

A full day had passed since they’d ran out onto the frozen rock at the center of the lake in an attempt to avoid the scrabbling claws of death. The growls of the wights had subsided and it had grown eerily quiet. Gendry getting word to this dragon queen was their only hope. 

He felt like he was being watched, almost laughed at by these silent men as they waited patiently for the water to freeze. Pulling his arm back he threw the stone with a grunt and watched as it knocked the jaw off of a particularly disheveled corpse. 

“Dumb cunt…”

“Clegane…” he heard Thoros warn from behind. “Don’t do that.” 

“And who do you think you are, priest? Just because yer a cock-sucker doesn’t make ye my mother,” Sandor snapped at him, grabbing a bigger rock. 

Mostly out of spite, he turned from the group and lobbed the stone out at the dead once more. Only this time, it hit the ground halfway across the ice and skittered to a stop in front of their feet. The dead man looked down at the rock, then up at him.

“Oh… fuck.”

“Should we have kept you on a fucking lead, _dog_?” Thoros hissed as he and Beric flanked him. 

Sandor sneered as he watched the animated skeleton trudge towards him across the now frozen ice. He just _had_ to throw the damned rock. More of the dead began to follow the first out onto the lake. Clutching the smith’s hammer tightly, Sandor readied himself. _You fool._

The dead came from all sides, scraping weapons across the ice in bone chilling slowness. Sandor cringed at the sound.

“Fuck it,” he growled as he stepped forward, swinging the hammer high and wide to knock the creature off to the side. 

Another came, and another, and he swung the weapon into them as well, hearing the satisfying crunch of cold, dead bone. Behind him more dead had swarmed up the rock and he could hear the grunts of Jon and Tormund close by. Sandor backed up, watching the dead approach when he caught eye of the sack of bones he had thrown the rock at. He knew the thing couldn’t recognize him, but it seemed drawn to him anyhow and began trudging toward him at a quicker pace. 

With an angry swing of the hammer, he cracked the ice and watched as it fell into the icy depths below him. _Dead cunt now._

There were so many… too many. There was no way they would be able to kill the thousands of dead that had awaited their moment. Why in seven hells were they all trying to kill them anyhow? Did it really take this many? If he made it out of this alive, he’d never live down throwing the stupid rock.

It was a flurry of dead and swords, flames and bone as the living grunted and yelled their way through wave after wave of screeching dead men. A headless, armless body ran by on fire. The smith’s hammer was doing no good in killing these creatures, only breaking them apart. He threw it down in a rage and pulled the dragonglass dagger and hatchet from his hip before slicing into the dead once more. Close combat it was.

“Help me! Ahhh, help me!”

Sandor swung around to see a pile of dead men pulling Tormund into the water. The wilding’s bloody face was frantic as his own knife pushed against his throat. Slicing at another wight, he ran towards him and cut down the creatures. A brief, grateful nod as the wildling clamored to his feet was all he got before more of the dead came at them, pushing them up the small hill of the rock they were on. 

The group was overwhelmed and from the top of the rocky ledge, Sandor could see nothing but death swarming around them. He’d die here. They all would. The only thing he thought of in that moment was Arya. At least he’d have one happy memory to go out with, he thought with a grim laugh.

Pressure built in his ears as a loud thunder sounded above. Flames erupted in the sky, so close Sandor thought they’d singe his hair. Wide eyed, he looked up to see a dragon fly over head. There were three in total that flew back and forth over them now, spitting fire much too close for his comfort. Flames danced mere feet above him and he ducked in fear. Somehow, he was more afraid now than he had been fighting off the dead. 

The largest of the beasts crashed down beside them, its long scaly neck outstretched above them as it spit fire along the icy lake. Sandor froze as the beast swung its head towards them, the hot glow of fire visible between its long, sharp teeth. Thoros elbowed him out of the trance and he grabbed the dead man they needed to get back to King’s Landing and reluctantly made his way up the wing of the creature. 

Seven hells, was he really climbing atop a fiery sack of teeth and wings? If he ever saw Arya again, there’s no way she’d believe him. He didn’t believe it himself. 

In a flurry of fire, screeching dead and a fallen dragon, he heard Jon yell at them to leave but the Targaryen girl waited, clearly shocked that one of her beasts had just died. Jon yelled once more as he made his way towards them, fighting off the dead before he was ambushed and pulled into the frozen waters. _Shit!_ Sandor instinctively lurched forward to go to his aide, but there was no movement from the icy water.

The beast beneath him started moving, making its way to the edge of the small cliff. Clutching to the spiny horns that lined its back, he held on for his life as the dragon clumsily forced itself into the air. And then, they were flying. 

Sandor could count the number of times he’d been truly scared on one hand. Very quickly, the second hand was filling up. It was fast, and far too high. Somehow he was both frozen by the icy winds that bit at his face and sweating from the belly of fire beneath him. At one point in their short journey back to East Watch, he managed to open his eyes to look down to where his hands clutched the beast’s back and thought he might actually pass out. Deafening flaps of giant wings jostled them back and forth and his own heart pounded rapidly in his ears. 

Yet somehow, as soon as it had all begun, it was over in a loud crash that almost knocked him from his place. Hazarding a glance, Sandor looked up, and up, and up to see the endless expanse of frozen Wall before them. He had never been happier to see a block of ice in his life. From there he seemed to move on autopilot, distantly watching himself as he hefted the still struggling dead creature down off the dragon and through the north gate of East Watch. 

“Well, that was something,” he heard Thoros drawl from behind him as he tossed the dead man down with a grunt. The priest emptied his flask down his throat.

“Something that got Snow killed,” Sandor growled, turning towards him. 

“Aye. He knew the risk,” Beric said solemnly.

“The _risk_?” Sandor bellowed. “We’re a bunch of fucking fools. Was this all worth it? Is this what your lord wanted, Beric? To get him and the Targaryen girl’s dragon killed for _this_?” Sandor motioned angrily down to the now-still wight in the corner.

They were interrupted as the white haired woman made her way through the dark, cold corridor. Jorah Mormont followed closely behind, tight lipped. None of them said a word as she walked by, emotionless and stiff.

“ _This_ ,” he grumbled again, spitting at the creature, before making his way back to the main castle. 

Sandor wanted to go home, back to her; to bury his face in her neck, to hold her warmth close and thaw his frozen heart. This wasn’t worth it, risking his life for a world that didn’t give two shits about him. It had been right in front of his face, holding onto him; the one thing that saw him as more than a device meant to kill. Maybe he should have taken Thoros’s advice and stolen away to Essos with her while there was still a chance. 

No more of this nonsense; he would get a good night’s sleep and ride back to Winterfell in the morning. He was done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way D&D killed off Thoros was disrespectful to his character and to the relationship he and Beric had (even platonic). Also, the man has literally worn the same breast plate the entire show and you're telling me he wouldn't have it on when they went north of the Wall? In this house we love and take care of our drunk red priest.


	19. Arya X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya arrives at East Watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> __
> 
> ‘We’re never as lost or as found as we think we are.’ —The Midnight

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

Her mare nickered gently as she flicked the reins, eager to put distance between her and Winterfell’s grey stone walls before she changed her mind. The leather of the saddle bags creaked and knocked against her calves as she rode into the spitting snow, squinting to see the King’s Road in front of her. 

Before cresting the hill where she had last seen Sandor as she waved goodbye from the parapets, she looked back to the looming grey shadow that was her home. Soon enough, she would return, with her pack.

It would be at least a fortnight until she made it to the Wall, and that was if she rode hard. Kicking the sturdy flanks of her horse, she leaned into its body as they galloped along the muddy path. The journey would be cold and lonely, but what hopefully awaited her on the other end would be worth it.

 

* * *

Arya wasn’t sure what she was expecting when she arrived at the Wall, but seeing the tattered castle at East Watch with its rickety wooden staircases zigzagging up to the top was disappointing. She'd heard stories of Castle Black with its impressive elevator and had expected all of the castles along the Wall to be equally advanced. Tiny dots moved along the wooden stairs and walkways along the tall sheet of ice, so far up she couldn’t discern them from gnats in a summer’s heat.

A large shadow passed over her as her mare whinnied anxiously. Arya looked up to see two giant beasts flapping their wings lazily as they circled the castle. They let out a painful call, a screeching that felt mournful. There were supposed to be three of the beasts, had one died? What awaited her through the gates of East Watch? 

Unsure exactly how this would go, Arya grimly braced herself as she cantered up the path to the entrance, keeping an eye out for scouts who might ambush her. Much like Winterfell, the castle was of grey stone with wooden galleries and roofs peaking through the gate. She felt a distant tug for home that she tried to brush aside.

“That’s far enough, rider,” a voice bellowed from the gatehouse. 

Arya pulled her mare to a stop and lowered her hood. She raised her hands in peace as she looked up to where the guards had arrows drawn. 

“What business do you have ‘ere, woman?” 

“I am Arya Stark of Winterfell, here for Jon Snow, the King in the North.”

“We got no word of you,” he drawled suspiciously. “Off yer horse.”

The portcullis groaned as it rose halfway. Two men, wildlings by the look of it, came out. One took the reins of her horse, the other moved towards her. “Sword belt.” 

Reluctantly, she undid the buckle and handed over Needle and the dagger. With one hand holding the weapons, the large man grabbed her arm roughly and started pulling her inside. 

“Hey, watch it!” Arya hissed as his grip tightened. 

“Tie that mare up, I’ll take ‘er in. Tormund back upstairs yet?”

“No, ‘e’s still down at the gate securin’ that dead man. Durriken’s still in charge.”

With a grunt, the man pulled her towards the main building of the castle. She looked longingly back to her saddle bags, making a mental note to geld anyone who stole her faces.

“You don’t have to hold me so tight.”

“Shut up, wench. Plenty o’ men ‘ere who’d have you. If you behave yerself, Durriken might make sure that doesn’t ‘appen.” 

Arya sneered at the dirty man but kept her mouth shut. She’d have no trouble getting out of his grip and taking him out if she really wanted to, but the last thing she wanted right now was to cause trouble when she needed to find Jon and Sandor. They walked through a pair of large wooden doors and down a dark, cold corridor to a large room that looked to be the castle’s main hall. Several worn wood tables were spread out, dirty with the day’s meal still on them. A steward was making his way around, cleaning up. In front of the large hearth at one end of the hall, a man sat hunched on a bench, occupied with the blade in his hand.

“Durriken, we got a prize for ye,” the wildling called. Arya rolled her eyes. 

“The ‘ell is this?” The skinny man, hardly taller than she was, stood and rounded the table. She had to admit, she was expecting someone large and intimidating, but this was rather amusing. 

“She claimin’ she knows Jon Snow. We ain’t receive word of no visitor for ‘im, I think she’s up to no good.” 

Durriken eyed her with a slimy expression. The thin man licked his lips and it took everything Arya had to not make a face in disgust. 

“Take ‘er to a cell. Tormund’ll be up soon enough. Let ‘im deal with it.”

“You don’t understand!” Arya wretched from the wildling’s grasp. “I’m not just some lost wench! My name is Arya Stark and I’m here for Jon Snow, my _brother_ , and the King in the North. And the Brotherhood: a one-eyed man, a red priest and a large man with a half-burnt face. If you don’t tell me where—”

“Girl.” 

The deep, instantly recognizable timbre came from down the corridor to the side of the hall. Arya turned to see a large man approaching. Her heart leap to her throat as a warm flush turned her skin to gooseflesh. He looked almost unrecognizable in his bundle of furs and leathers, his hair a tangled mess from the Northern winds, his face hardened and exhausted.

“What in seven hells are you doing here?” He sounded tired, and confused. Rightly so.

“S-Sandor?” Arya took a step towards him, hesitant that it was all just another dream and soon she’d be pulled from it and returned to her lonely chambers in Winterfell. 

Sandor closed the gap between them by several paces, and as the light of a nearby brazier caught the ridges of his scars, Arya grinned stupidly. Her legs moved quickly then, and she jumped up at him, wrapping her arms around his neck as he pulled her close with a satisfied, albeit surprised grunt. 

She pressed her cold lips to his wind-chapped lips feverishly. Cold fingers tangled in his dirty, knotted hair as she nipped at his lip with a desperate hunger. Strong arms and big hands held her to him, grasping her tightly as their tongues danced. His breath was sour and he smelled none too good, but she didn’t care. He was here. She was here. Nothing else, in that moment, mattered to her. Arya hadn’t realized how lost she felt until his touch began warming her.

Cupping his face, she pulled back from the kiss, breathless as she looked him over. Her legs were wrapped around him just as tightly as his arms were around her. Part of her still couldn’t believe he was actually here. So she pressed a kiss to the cold tip of his nose, then to his good cheek against the long, rough whiskers, and then his lips. Low grunts of amusement came from him as he returned the gesture eagerly. Arya searched his tired brown gaze.

“You’re not leaving me again,” she said resolutely, her dark brow furrowed. Another kiss. 

“Mm.. well… I was on my way… to get out of these sodding rags… guess you’ll have to come… with me,” he mumbled into her mouth between her little pecks. 

“I take it ye’ know the lass?” she heard behind her. The wildling from a moment ago. Slowly, reluctantly, she slid to the floor as he loosened his hold on her. She stayed close.

“Aye, she’s with me.” 

The man approached, holding out the sword belt he had taken from her at the gate in a gesture of goodwill. Arya took it with a nod before glancing up at the man who held her close to his side. Warmth radiated from the hand on her back.

Sandor looked down at her for a moment, his brow furrowing in contemplation as though he wasn’t sure what to do next. 

“Come on, then.”

The walk through the cold corridor, down the winding stone stairs and through yet another long corridor felt like it took ages. She’d kept her hands to herself as they walked, but when the door clicked shut, Arya dropped her sword to the floor and pressed herself against him once more. With effort, she pushed him back towards the bed, smirking as he dropped heavily to the straw mattress. She kissed him roughly as she maneuvered her way onto his lap, straddling his hips and pressing her body to his. Large hands tentatively explored her legs, squeezing them gently as he pulled her close.

“Arya…”

“No,” she breathed as she brushed her lips gently against his.

It was all too fast, but she needed him and if she stopped to think about what that actually meant, she worried she might come to her senses. Determined, she ground her hips against his, smiling into his mouth as she pressed into the growing bulge between them. Sandor let out a low growl that went straight to her core. Her fingers fumbled against the weird buckles and clasps of the wildling coat he wore as his hands grasped roughly at her ass.

Rough, calloused fingers dug their way beneath her leathers, causing her to suck in a sharp breath when they finally found her still-warming skin. It shouldn’t have made her gasp, but there was something immensely satisfying and electric about feeling his skin on her’s at last. Keeping one hand on her back, his other worked at the ties on her jerkin.

Finally managing to get the fastenings undone on the heavy coat he wore, she pushed it back only to be disappointed by the same leathers he had worn in Winterfell. More buckles and clasps. Arya let out an irritated huff and heard him chuckle. The warmth of his hand on her back disappeared and he pulled his arms from the thick coat before working at the clasps on his other layers. She could see his neck now, covered in thick hair from a beard unshaven in some time. He was rough looking but she was aroused by it.

Disregarding his efforts to undress, she leaned forward to press her lips against the coarse hair on his neck and found it none too pleasing to kiss. It mattered little, as long as she was touching him, she thought as her fingers deftly untied the top of his tunic to expose more of his skin. Her teeth grazed over his collarbone, eliciting another low growl from him which only fueled her passions. As her little hands fumbled at the hem of his tunic, trying to find more skin, he quickly made work of the rest of her ties. 

Her leathers were tossed to the floor at last and his large hands ran up under her tunic to grasp her back once more. His touch felt desperate yet withholding as his coarse fingers traced lines along her skin, leaving fire in their wake. Arya sighed into his mouth as she kissed him again, but suddenly he pushed her back.

“Stop,” he said breathlessly. His eyes were heavy and filled with lust. 

“What do you mean ‘stop’?” Arya went back to his collarbone, pressing a kiss to the scar at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. She felt his teeth graze her neck and a delicious shiver ran through her.

“We can’t do this,” Sandor mumbled, his breath hot on her skin. He said one thing, but did another as his hands grasped at her hips and ground her down into his. She wanted more of his touch, to the point of bruises.

“Why not?” She was growing weary of his mixed signals.

“We just… Arya, stop.” He let out a low growl as he pushed her away again, looking her in the eyes. “We kissed. Once. And then you rode all the way _here_ …?” Sandor shook his head in exasperation. “What were you thinking, girl?”

“Was that really all it was? Just a kiss?” She sat back on his knees, staring at him incredulously. “Everything you said, everything I said, all the unspoken things? They meant nothing? Shall I leave, then?” 

Arya looked down, frowning as her fingers ran hesitantly along the silvery skin of the scars scattered beneath the thick hair on his exposed chest, not wanting to give up the feel of his body. She watched as it rose and fell in measured succession, not meeting his gaze. His hands hadn’t left her hips, she noticed. He was silent as he thought about her question.

“No,” he sighed in resignation at last.

“No, what? It didn’t mean anything?”

“No, I don’t want you to leave.” The words seemed difficult for him to get out, but his hands tightened on her waist.

“I told you, you don’t have to be alone anymore.” 

Arya leaned closer as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his. Apprehensively she pressed her forehead to his, biting her lip at the intimate touch, her mouth a whisper away from his. Guarded but warm brown eyes met her gaze. 

“ _I_ don’t want to be alone anymore,” Arya admitted against his lips as she squeezed her eyes shut as though that would rid her of the embarrassment of the admission. 

She felt him tense for the briefest of moments before his mouth was crushing against hers with bruising force and grabbing her tight as he shifted to lay her down on the bed. As he held her face with both hands, tangling his tongue with hers, she felt the throbbing heat between his legs pressed against her thigh. Her head fell back and her back arched as his hand drifted from her cheek down to cup one of her small breasts through her tunic. It was dwarfed in his large hand, but she didn’t care. Everything about him dwarfed her and made her feel safe, something she’d never admit aloud. 

The tingle of nipping teeth trailed along her exposed neck and she pressed her body up into his as she wrapped her leg around his hips. Desperately Arya grabbed at his back, pulling his tunic up to feel the strong expanse of muscle beneath. Small sighs escaped her lips as he kissed her neck, his hand running down her side to grab her rear and pull her closer. His fingers found her stomach beneath the thick tunic she wore and she gasped as the touch twisted her stomach into knots. Achingly slow, as their mouths met once more, his hand moved up her stomach, along her ribcage and onto her breast to run a thumb over her nipple. 

The moan that escaped her lips came loud and unbidden into his mouth as they kissed. Her hand shot up to cover her mouth as she met his gaze with wide eyes, embarrassed at the sound she made. Sandor gave her a lustful grin as his thumb ran over the sensitive bud again, circling once, twice, three times before pinching and twisting lightly. Her sighs of pleasure disappeared into his mouth as it hovered just a breath away from hers, nipping playfully here and there at her lower lip as he continued. Warmth radiated from his touch and pooled between her legs. She ached like she never had before and wanted—needed—him to do something about it. Reaching down slowly, she grabbed his wrist from under her shirt and pull it lower. Her heart pounded in her ears as she searched his eyes, unsure if she should actually continue. 

The look on his face was one she’d seen before, one of animalistic desire. She’d seen it after they’d killed the Lannister soldiers in the Riverlands as his shoulders heaved and he wiped the blood from his face. This wasn’t much different than killing—pure instinct—just for pleasure instead of survival.

Feeling bold, she interlaced her fingers along the back of his hand so his palm never left her skin and slid it down her belly towards the heat between her legs. He let her guide his hand to the hem of her trousers before he paused. 

“Arya…”

Immediately she missed the weight of him against her as he shifted to lie beside her, sitting up on his elbow. The twisted fabric of her tunic had pulled up to expose her scarred belly and she watched with heavily lidded eyes as his thumb ran along the pocked surface. With tiny hands, Arya grabbed his face gently and turned it up to face her. 

“What are you so afraid of?” She screwed her face up in frustration. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked him that.

As though she were a specimen, Sandor grasped her face firmly but gently in one hand and ran a thumb over her bottom lip, watching as the soft flesh pulled along before bouncing back to its place. His brown eyes, still dark with lust, studied her in silence.

“You,” he rasped finally, bending to claim her mouth once more.

 

* * *

 


	20. Sandor X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunions are interrupted and plans are made at East Watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> _Funny you're the broken one_  
>  _But I'm the only one who needed saving_  
>  _'Cause when you never see the light_  
>  _It's hard to know which one of us is caving_  
>  _—Stay, Thirty Seconds to Mars_  
> 

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

Arya laughed into his mouth as he pressed her into the straw mattress. A low growl of disapproval rumbled in his throat as he grabbed her hip tightly at the mocking noise.

“Me? You’re just as fucked as I am,” she mumbled as she kissed the corner of his mouth.

She wasn’t wrong. He had just as many, if not more, problems than she did. This was just all so new to him, this sudden intimacy with someone who actually wanted his attentions and returned them with zeal, someone who didn’t judge him for his past and wanted to continue with whatever… this… was turning into. 

And _fuck_ if he didn’t like the feel of her, he thought as his fingers flexed into the bone of her hip. A sweet little thing she was, bruises, scars and all. But who was he to judge? 

Arya bit at his lower lip and tugged at his wrist. Impatient minx. Sandor worked at the ties of her trousers as he nipped and sucked his way along her pale neck. Burying his face into the crook of her neck, he slid his hand beneath the hem of her trousers and listened as her breaths grew ragged in his ear. What a perfect sound. He wondered how many times she’d touched herself, if anyone else had ever touched her before. 

His hand rested on her thigh between her pants and small clothes. Gods, the fucking heat coming from her cunt was almost too much to bear. Her hips lifted slightly at the touch but he wasn’t sure if it was of her own volition. The smallest of whimpers sang of her desire against his ear. Her nails dug into his back as she held him close, pressing rough kisses to his collarbone. 

Cautiously, as though she’d bolt if given the chance, he caught her eye. He’d never be able to live it down if he forced her in anyway, as much as he might want her.

“Please…” she whispered, her voice hoarse with lust against his lips. Hearing her beg with those bright, needing eyes was almost enough to do him in. It would definitely be a warm memory he kept with him for lonely, cold nights.

As though to squash any doubts he might have, she slid a hand between them to tentatively grab his aching manhood through his trousers. _Fuck_. He felt himself throb against her tiny hand as she ran unpracticed fingers along his length. Mirroring her, Sandor moved his own hand from it’s place on her leg to rest on top of the heat at the center of her hips. Short breaths tickled his skin as she buried her face in his neck, but he pulled up to see her flushed face. 

“Let me see you, girl,” he growled as he grabbed her mound firmly. Her grey eyes watched him with some delicious mix of lust and determination, as though this were a challenge she had to win.

Heat and wetness had seeped through the thin fabric of her small clothes and Sandor wasn’t sure he had ever needed to restrain himself more. With a light kiss to her chin, he pressed a finger against her and drew it up, feeling the small bump of her swollen clit through the fabric. 

“Ahh!” Arya’s head fell back and both hands gripped so tightly at his tunic he was sure she’d rip it.

With hooded eyes he watched her little face up close, nuzzling her chin with his nose—those faint freckles from her time in Braavos, her sweet, pink lips parted _just_ so and the teeth that peaked out to bite at the bottom one as he slowly circled the bundle of sensation between her now-parted legs. He watched her neck elongate as she bit her lip even harder, saw her chest rise as her back arched into him. His mouth latched onto the soft skin, tasting the saltiness of her travels, as he left his mark on her. One finger hooked onto the edge of her small clothes, intent on disappearing into that wet heat as she fumbled with the hem of his trousers. Small fingers tickled the skin at his hips as she once again reached for his cock; he was unused to such a soft touch and let out an involuntarily groan as she slid further down, matching his movements as his hand slipped past the thin fabric barrier—

Reverberations shook the walls of the castle as a loud horn sounded from atop the Wall, causing them both to jump in surprise. Arya gasped as she came out of the lustful daze she’d been lost in and met his eyes in confusion. 

“What..?”

Sandor shrugged, as equally stumped as to what the loud horn meant. Honestly, he didn’t care and just as he bent down to suckle at her neck again, the racket of thundering foot steps outside the door as men ran past completely ruined the moment. Arya pushed against his chest, instinctually drawn towards the possible danger on the other side of the door. He caught the dark glint in her eye as she clamored over him to press an ear against the door as she pulled on her leathers. 

“There’s someone at the north gate!” 

“Is it Snow?”

Arya shot him an accusatory look and Sandor realized that in the flurry of their heated reunion, he had completely forgotten to mention Jon to her. 

“Where is Jon?” Frantic fingers situated the sword belt upon her narrow hips. 

“He—he didn’t make it…” Sandor looked down in shame, unable to meet her eyes.

“What! What do you mean ‘he didn’t make it’?!”  

Before he could say anything, Arya had flung the door open and ran down the hall in the direction the other men had gone, leaving him half dressed on the bed with a very noticeable erection. Groaning, he came to his feet, adjusted the uncomfortable bulge between his legs and pulled his leathers on, leaving the nasty wildling coat on the floor with a look of disdain. 

 

* * *

Sandor came into the room as Arya approached her brother where he laid on one of the long tables in the dining hall, closest to the fire. Most of the men who had gone north were gathered around, both looking concerned about Jon and confused about Arya.

“What happened to him?” Her voice was measured but stern.

“Beggin’ your pardon, m’lady, who are you?” Davos looked up from one side of the table.

Arya lifted a dark brow towards the old man. “I’m his _sister_ , Arya Stark. What the hell happened?!”

“Well, one: it would appear he survived his fall into the frozen lake by some grace,” Thoros pointed out before squinting at her. “And two: what precisely are _you_ doing here, wolf-girl? Couldn’t stay away from the dog anymore?”

Arya scowled at the priest but ignored his question, looking around the rest of the room. Tormund, Beric, Thoros, Davos and a few wildlings stood about, peering over her shoulder to where the man laid encrusted in icy layers.

“Why did you leave him behind? You should have protected him—he’s your King!”

“He did fall into a lake, not sure if you heard that part,” Thoros quipped apathetically as he worked at the cork on his flask.

“Not much we could do, girl, we were swarmed by the dead,” Sandor shrugged. She shot him a pointed glare over her shoulder before turning back to her brother. 

Jon Snow’s face was blue and ghostly and if it weren’t for the slightest rise and fall of his chest, Sandor would have been sure he was dead. Arya tentatively ran her hands along the frozen rags before placing both of them on her brother’s cheeks. 

“Isn’t there a maester here?” She looked up impatiently, eyeing each of the men that stood around the table. 

“Unfortunately, no,” Davos frowned. “With the Night’s Watch spread so thin and the wildling’s making up the bulk of the forces watching the Wall now, the best we’ve got is likely here before you.”

“We need to get him warm—he needs out of these clothes.” 

Sandor stood with his arms crossed watching Arya and the other men figure out what best to do. Tormund knocked into his shoulder lightly. His glare was met with a toothy, sly grin and mirthful eyes.

“So it _was_ the other sister…” 

“Should’ve let those damned things pull you into the water,” Sandor grumbled as he caught Arya’s eye looking at something behind him. 

“Arry?” 

Still rather pale from his long run back, Gendry stood at the other end of the hall. Sandor turned back to Arya, who looked like she was seeing a ghost. The boy did sort of look like one.

“Wait… Gendry? What are you doing here? I thought…” She pointed to where Beric and Thoros stood, her brow knit in confusion. 

Some combination of amusement and jealousy twisted in his stomach as he watched Arya reunite with the smith. The amusement he understood, as he watched her punch the boy hard, her face tight in anger as she chastised him. But it was the jealousy when she finally softened and embraced him, and he hugged back, that annoyed Sandor. It was stupid, he knew that, but the longer they held their embrace, still talking as chins rested on shoulders, the crippling urge to geld the boy grew in the pit of his stomach.

“Where the hell is my hammer?”

Increasingly dark thoughts were interrupted as Sandor rose a brow in the smith’s direction. He shrugged.

“At the bottom of a frozen lake, if I had to guess.”

“If you had to guess? You didn’t bring it back?”

“No, I didn’t ‘bring it back’. Was a bit distracted with the horde of dead men trying to kill me. Sorry about your little hammer,” Sandor sneered.

The smith huffed in annoyance, but quickly gave up any fight he may have had in him to turn back to Arya. The two spoke a bit more before Arya came over and pulled him aside. Even if it was a brief touch, the feel of her hand on his arm warmed him in a way the nearby fire never would. Silence shrouded them for a moment as Jon was taken out of the room, her eyes following her brother until she could no longer see him. 

Turning her attention back to him, her face softened but her stormy eyes told the true story. Sandor had learned the look, the one of conflicting desires. He’d seen it upon her face plenty of times.

“I’m going to King’s Landing with them,” she said quietly. There went any notion of returning to Winterfell.

“What's there in that shit hole for you?”

“Cersei. Your brother.”

His brother. He’d heard rumors of what had happened to the mighty Mountain That Rides. Frankly, he had hoped someone would have just let the son of a bitch die but if he was still alive, perhaps this was a chance to take care of it.

“Are you coming with me?” 

Sandor made a face, looking around at the men who had stayed behind. Tormund, Beric, Thoros and Gendry. He hadn’t seen Jorah, but knew the man would be plastered to the Targaryen girl’s back. Staying here wasn’t an option and without her, Winterfell was out of the question.

“Well,” he sighed. “I’m not about to let you get yourself killed.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Yeah, you do, she-wolf,” he simpered, watching her scowl soften. _My she-wolf._  

Sandor ached to just lay a hand upon her shoulder or brush the hair from her face but kept his distance with this many people around. The overwhelming possessiveness he felt in that moment had little to do with the boy she’d reunited with and more to do with what he’d seen beyond the wall. At least King’s Landing was even further from those creatures than Winterfell; it was about the only upside.

 

* * *

Steam drifted lazily in the cool air as the basin of water sloshed gently with the motion of the boat. Sandor groaned as he finally dunked the rag in hot water and brought it to his face, scrubbing roughly at his skin. With food in his belly and a soon to be clean body, he realized how fortunate he was to have survived the whole ordeal north of the Wall. It had been a fool’s mission and if he had to do it all over again, he most definitely would have just stayed in Winterfell like the girl had wanted. Stupid notions seemed to be running rampant, he considered as he looked over to where Arya’s cloak and saddlebag sat on the lone chair in the room. She shouldn’t even be here, and yet, she was. His mouth quirked gratefully.

He stepped out of his soiled clothes to begin taking the rag to the length of his body. Armed with a small bar of soap and a huge basin of water, he slowly began to feel more human and less like a mangy old dog.

Murmurs of conversation drifted between the wooden walls, indistinct to his untrained ear. They were enough to give him pause about the things he wanted to do to the Stark girl during their two week journey. If it weren’t for the fact that it was her brother, he would have done unspeakable things to the man that interrupted their reunion earlier that day. His entrails would likely have been used on the doorknob to warn anyone else who wished to disturb them.

Wringing out the soiled cloth, Sandor watched the dirty water swirl with the suds before dunking the rag in once more to finish. He eyed the clean clothes that laid on the bed a few steps away: a rough spun tunic and trousers on loan from one of the men manning the ship that actually looked his size. It would be itchy, but at least they would be clean until he could wash his own garments. 

With limited space aboard the ship, they would be sharing the rather small cabin for the duration of the journey to Dragonstone. Brown eyes drifted to the bed itself, a plush feather mattress—they were on the Dragon Queen’s boat after all—and a few pillows, topped with wool blankets and furs. Even given his size, it would be more than comfortable enough for them to share. Above the bed was a small porthole with glazed wavy glass and a geometric wooden trellis on top that overlooked the starboard side of the boat, straight onto the icy water that sloshed some distance below. Grey light streamed in hesitantly. Flickering around him on the wall were several torches that somehow managed to keep the room not completely freezing. It was still cooler than he would have liked, but, looking down at his nakedness, he knew that would change soon enough. 

Quickly he finished, taking the pitcher of water he’d set aside and pouring part of it over his head as he leaned over the basin. With soap in hand, he scrubbed the tangled mess of filthy hair atop his head before rinsing and reaching blindly for a towel. 

Mostly dry and fully dressed, he sat down on the edge of the bed with a grunt. The murmuring had hushed and he could hear the creak of the wood above him as people moved about the quarterdeck. From the sounds of it, they had pulled up the anchor and were preparing to set sail. Good riddance to this northern hell; he wanted to be warm and free of worry for once in his life. Sandor thought about the one moment he thought he had been carefree, after spending months healing with Ray, only to have that taken from him. Perhaps he’d fair better across the Narrow Sea—would she want to go back, or would she want to stay with her family?

The thought haunted him, the fear of losing her. Death was an inevitability, one he’d work to avoid and protect her from as best he could, but worst still was if she chose her family and set him aside. It was a constant shadow even in the brightness of her presence, even though she had told him she wanted him. To be wanted was not something his sorry soul had ever had the privilege of experiencing. 

As he reached for the flagon of wine on the bedside table, he noticed the thick red string twisted haphazardly upon the wood top. It had been a parting gift from Thoros, a piece of his red shawl. ‘May this serve to remind you that even if you feel lost, it will be but a moment. She’s meant to come back,’ the priest had said quite seriously as he pressed it into his hand. 

Not that Thoros would know that, he thought as he picked up the string to examine it more closely. It was thick and a deep red, soiled from years of abuse, much like both of their souls. Taking a drink of wine, Sandor wondered if the drunk priest really was smarter than he let on.

A soft knock on the door drew his attention away from the string and he looked up to see Arya peaking in. 

“Safe to come in?” 

“Aye, it’s safe,” he said gruffly as he sat the red string back on the table. 

“Feel better?” She was leaning against the closed door, her hands casually behind her back.

“Like a new man.” 

“Well, I hope not completely,” she commented, her piercing gaze not leaving him.

“No, not completely,” Sandor nodded as he took another sip of wine. The Dragon Queen had decent taste. 

"Jon will be okay, Davos says. Just needs rest and warm blankets. Daenerys seemed quite concerned for his safety, I think something is going on between the two of them.”

The ship rocked gently as Sandor watched her from his place on the edge of the bed. Her thumb ran absently over the hilt of Needle and he couldn’t help but think of where else she could do that. His cock twitched in anticipation but he tried to focus.

“That bothers you.”

She shrugged. “I’d like to be able to talk with him before I make that determination.”

Sandor grunted noncommittally and finished off the cup of wine. Arya still had not moved from the door. 

“You plannin’ to come in, girl? Or just stand there and stare? I know being clean is a shock after seeing that mess, but that just makes this ugly mug all the easier to see. No one wants that.”

“I do,” she said softly. “I missed it.”

“Aye, you’re right. You _are_ just as fucked as I am, if you missed this.” 

Arya’s face softened into a warm, genuine smile that made his cold heart ache. _Gods, girl._

“Then so be it.” 

She chewed on her lip for a moment before taking a measured step towards him as she pulled the worn leather gloves from her fingers. 

“I’ve been thinking about you, and that face, a lot since you left Winterfell,” she admitted quietly as she tossed the gloves on the chair where her other belongings were.

“Have ye now?” Sandor’s good brow quirked up in interest as he watched her undress in front of him achingly slowly and just out of reach. Her sword belt fell to the floor with a dull thud.

“Oh, I have,” her voice was low and her eyes raked over him as she toed off her boots. 

“You’ll catch a cold, girl,” he pointed out as she undid the ties of her jerkin. 

“Guess you’ll have to help me get warm.” 

“Not the first time your well-being’s fallen into my lap,” he smirked, aware of the double entendre.

Arya hummed in agreement as her cool, steady gaze sent prickling fire along the back of his neck. The leathers fell to the floor with a faint rustle and she took the final step to close the distance between them.


	21. Arya + Sandor I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor learns what Arya likes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  **#boatsex done the right way. Just straight smut this chapter. Written in 3rd person.**
> 
> * * *
> 
> _I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together._  
>  _—  Lisa Kleypas, Blue-Eyed Devil_  

* * *

 

* * *

 

  


So many cold, lonely nights she’d thought about this moment, but to have it here in front of her now was both exciting and terrifying. Wordlessly, Arya pressed her legs against his as she traced the shape of his knee through the fabric of his pants, trying to ignore the pounding in her chest and the tingle in her fingertips. She looked up at him, grey eyes heavy with lust as she bit her lip, the faintest devilish smirk pulling at one corner. 

Sandor drew her near, flexing his fingers in the soft flesh of her arse as he pressed a kiss to her grin. She hummed appreciatively as his long whiskers tickled her lip and nose. Long eyelashes fluttered on her freckled cheek.

“We’ve got weeks on this boat, you sure you want to bunk with an old dog like me?”

“Want to do more than just bunk with the old dog.” Arya’s breath was hot against his ear as the hand on his knee moved towards the aching heat between his legs. 

A low growl rumbled deep in his throat as he moved to claim her mouth, grabbing the back of her head firmly in one hand while the other snaked under her top.

“I warned you once long ago, girl, about what dogs could do to wolves. You sure you want to find out?” He fingered the soft skin beneath her tunic.

“You don’t know what _wolves_ can do to dogs. And I’m no girl, that much is certain.”

Arya slowly lifted one leg over his and then the other, straddling him as her knees pressed into the soft fur on the bed beneath them. Sandor chuckled quietly against her mouth.

“You seem quite sure of yourself.” 

Rough fingers ran along the soft fullness of her breast before grasping the small mound firmly. He was rewarded with an audible groan.

“The courtesans in Braavos taught me a few things.” The promise of those lessons sent a shiver down his back.

“So you’ve been with a man before?”

“Never been with a man,” Arya managed to grind out as he pinched the now-hard nub between two fingers. 

“So you’ve still got your maidenhead,” he deduced plainly, though Arya sensed he was disappointed. “I won’t take that from a high-born lady.”

“There are dragons in the sky and death is literally at our door, and you’re worried about being the first cock in my cunt? I want you. I don’t give two shits for all that flamboyant nonsense, you should know that by now, _ser_ ,” she mocked, a dark brow twitching in amusement. Her hand snaked down between them to find the throbbing bulge once more.

“Fair enough. You’re about as far from a lady as they get. But call me ser one more time and—”

“Please, _ser_ ,” she whispered breathlessly against his neck as her hand slowly pumped his cock through the increasingly tight fabric of his trousers. “Show me what dogs do to wolves.”

Perhaps he should have pulled back, removed her from his lap and ended it all here so that he wasn’t the one to take the final thread of virtue from her; but with her narrow hips grinding into him and her small hand grasping the length of his cock, his mind was a bit preoccupied with images of her sprawled naked beneath him, keening and begging for more. 

Greedily, he lifted her top off before he changed his mind. Tossing it to the floor, he took in the vision before him with hungry eyes. 

Arya instinctively covered herself with one arm as she met his hungry gaze with trepidatious eyes. A rough hand gently ran along the arm covering her breasts before stopping on her wrist. A chill ran through her.

“Let me see you.” 

It was a request, not a demand, and her arm moved freely as he pulled it down. With as gentle a touch as he was capable of, he caressed her small breast as he leaned back to take her in. His thumb ran over her nipple, hard from a combination of the room’s cool air and his ministrations. Small whimpers escaped her lips and her cheeks got hot. 

Butterflies twisted uncomfortably in her stomach as she quickly pulled his shirt off. The scars were enumerable, some newer than others, all hidden beneath a heavy dusting of dark hair that spread from his beard, across his broad chest, and down his stomach to disappear beneath the hem of his trousers. 

She bit her lip. He was a _man_. A properly strong, masculine man. The meat of his arm was dense and large in her hand as she squeezed his bicep lightly. In Braavos she had been propositioned by a boy here or there but they had all been so green they’d barely sprouted, dressing fancy and smelling nice. Or worse yet were the ones who hadn’t seen a bar of soap in months. Even clean, Arya could smell the raw musk of his skin. It made her tingle all over. Her fingers ran along his pectoral, fingering the scars absently before finally meeting his gaze. 

“Better?”

“Yes,” she managed hoarsely. 

“Good,” he mumbled before he grabbed her chin and kissed her roughly.

Sandor pulled her tight against him as he claimed her mouth. The heat between her legs was right on his cock and her pert nipples grazed his skin; it was almost too much. If she kept grinding against him, he was sure he’d finish in his trousers like some green boy. Determined for that not to happen, he held her close as he laid her down on the feather bed. 

When he sat back on his heels, straddling her, he was almost knocked out by the nymph of a woman beneath him. She was under _him_ , looking up at _him_ , wanting _him_. Like a messy halo, her mousey brown hair splayed around her head. Hooded, steel grey eyes fluttered, both hesitant and desperate. Pink lips parted slightly, begging to be claimed once more. His breath caught in his throat.

“Seven save me,” he shook his head as he caressed her hip. 

“Stop that,” Arya made a face.

“Never.” 

How he managed to bring her to his bed he’d never understand, but looking her over he knew he wanted to see and touch every part of her as though it might all disappear when he was done. Arya grabbed the hand caressing her side and pulled him down as though she had read his mind. 

‘Built like an ox,’ she’d once heard him be described. Lying beneath him now, it had never felt more true. Firm muscles rippled and tensed under her desperate grasp on his back as he kissed her, pressing her into the mattress with his hips. The heat of his skin fused with her own and she moaned into his mouth. He moved to kiss her neck, suckling and nipping and turning her into a puddle beneath him. Rough hair scratched her skin in a delicious sort of way as wet, open mouthed kisses trailed down her collarbone, towards her chest. 

Arya squirmed beneath him as his mouth neared her breast, hovering achingly close to her nipple. She could feel the heat of his breath dance across the hardened flesh, somehow making it even harder. Wet heat surrounded her after another agonizing moment of teasing and she gasped, squeezing her eyes shut at the sensation of his tongue flicking at the nub gently. Calloused fingers grasped the other one and twisted lightly, igniting what felt like a whole new level of desire deep in her belly. 

He moved on, peppering gentle, scratchy kisses to the scars on her belly. Her hand caressed his face as he looked up at her, turning to kiss her palm before moving further down. 

The ties on her pants were much easier to undo with two hands and he made quick work of them, loosening the hem and tugging gently as he sat up. Screwing up her face anxiously, Arya lifted her hips to let him pull both her pants and small clothes off. Vulnerability and desire twisted up her insides, a feeling she wasn’t sure she liked. Sandor leaned back down, resuming the electric kisses from her hip bone down to her thigh where he paused. 

Catching her eye, he gently pressed one hand against the inside of her thigh and felt her resist. 

“I’m going to see your cunt at some point,” Sandor smirked, pressing another kiss to her thigh reassuringly. 

“I know you’re going to see my cunt,” she frowned. 

“Relax,” he seemed to purr as he laid his cheek against her leg, rubbing her hip to ease her. “I won’t hurt you.” He sat up on his elbows then, a serious expression on his face. “But I also won’t ever do anything you don’t want.”

“You did once before when you left Winterfell,” Arya mumbled, looking off towards the other side of the room. 

Sandor frowned when she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He crawled back up to gently take her face in his hand, turning it so he could look at her. 

“I had to do that. And now that I have, now that I’ve seen what’s coming towards us, I will do everything I can to keep it from you—”

“I can protect myself.”

“Believe me, girl, I know. Doesn’t mean I won’t do what I can to ensure you’re safe. Plus, if death really is knocking on our door, I won’t squander what time we have. Had you not shown up, I would have rode for Winterfell in the morning, not stopping until I was right here where I am now.”

His thumb brushed over the faint dusting of freckles that danced below her wet eyes. Her own hand came up to cup the burnt side of his face. Sandor closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. If he wanted her to open up to him, he had to trust her as well. The faintest whisper of a kiss brushed over his lips.

“With that time, I want to learn every curve, every scar. Find out what you like,” his voice was low and gravelly as his hand drifted down to caress her thigh. “Will you tell me what you like?”

Arya felt the fire of his touch as his hand moved towards the apex of her legs. She relaxed ever so slightly, enough to invite him to continue his exploration. His eyes didn’t leave hers as his hand pressed against her leg to open it once more. This time she let him. One finger slipped between her wet folds, a second joining quickly as he found the bundle of nerves she’d wanted him to touch back at East Watch. 

She let out a breathy groan and pressed her hips up towards the touch as he moved in achingly slow circles. His beard scratched at the soft skin of her neck as he leaned down to kiss it. 

“Do you like that?” His breath was hot against her ear, sending a spark of heat right to where he touched. 

“Yes,” came the choked reply. 

Sandor stopped circling and moved towards her entrance, sitting back up to watch her as he began sinking one finger into her. He watched as her small breasts rose and fell in shuddered breaths as he slowly began to draw the finger out and in once more. Nails dug into his back as she squeezed her eyes shut against her flushed cheeks. 

“I want to taste you. Can I kiss you here?” As though to emphasize the words, his thumb circled over and around her clit as his finger buried deep inside her. She nodded. 

“Tell me."

“Kiss me there,” Arya pleaded as he nipped at her collarbone. 

She opened her legs wider as he settled between them, her hands anxiously playing with the furs beneath her. Kissing the inside of her thigh, he reached up to grasp one hand in reassurance, threading her small fingers between his.

He turned his attention back to the treat before him. A completely bare cunt was not something he’d ever been a fan of and her high-born grooming had left her with a neat patch of dark hair that accentuated her wet, pink core. His cock twitch impatiently. 

“That’s a good girl,” he murmured against the inside of her thigh. The words made her skin flush.

His thumb pressed between her folds causing her to gasp. Slowly he ran the digit down and up, circling the nub at the apex. Sandor chewed on his lip smugly as his thumb continued circling, watching as her hips loosened and fell open more for him. 

Most whores he’d bedded years prior had been quick, angry fucks for the sake of relieving tension when he couldn’t cut a man in half. But this second life he had been given, this woman who had been dropped in his lap once more, was a chance he wouldn’t waste. All the anger and vengeance and marching death in the world couldn’t compare to the feel of her, the sound of her, and soon, the taste of her. When words failed him, action always seemed ready to take their place, and so he would show her how he felt by making her feel good.

Sandor stopped and watched as her eyes shot open, ready to vocalize her protest. Before she could say a word, he pulled her towards the edge of the bed, getting a small yelp instead. His hands pressed against her thighs once more, spreading them and hooking her legs over his shoulders as he knelt beside the bed. Arya sat up on her elbows, miffed. 

“Better angle,” he grinned. 

“Have you licked a lot of cunts in your day?”

“One or two,” he smirked. Arya frowned. 

Sandor pressed a kiss to her half exposed clit, effectively quelling any further questioning as she let out a heady whimper that made his cock twitch again. Involuntarily he licked his lips as he looked up at her. Not breaking her gaze, he ran a finger along the length of the wetness, groaning as the heat in his belly stirred. 

Arya threw her head back with a moan as he replaced his finger with his tongue, moving from bottom to top. The sheets twisted in her fingers as her hips rose to meet his mouth.

Slowly he tasted her, making her squirm as his tongue circled and flicked. He pulled her clit into his mouth and sucked at it hungrily, causing her to press her thighs against his head as she let out another moan. 

She could feel him smile against her core as she slowly loosened the grip she had on his head. His tongue continued lapping in slow, broad strokes, as though she were a match ready to catch fire. Her heels dug into his back, sure to leave bruises, as a finger teased her entrance, running circles around it. As though he’d hit the right button, she let out a soft moan as his finger entered her, arching her back and pressing into his hand and mouth.

She twisted, lost in her own pleasure as he added another digit. The ache of being stretched by his fingers was a good ache, she quickly determined, especially coupled with that damnable tongue of his. Arya wasn’t sure she could hold onto the overwhelming sensations of pleasure sending waves of heat through her body much longer. Her hands tangled in his still-damp hair as his fingers sped up, the soft, wet squelch of their movement only serving to push her closer. 

The moment he pulled that sensitive bit of flesh into his mouth once more, she came undone in a way she had never experienced before. Biting her lip to keep from moaning too loudly she clenched around his fingers as wave after wave of pure, unadulterated pleasure finally washed over her. His arms hooked under and around her legs to hold her tight, preventing her from moving or closing them as he buried his face in her cunt, circling and circling and throwing her into a frenzy. From his place between her legs, he watched her arch her back and twist as he continued to bring her pleasure. Arya did her best to keep quiet but when she couldn’t take it any longer, a choked mewl erupted from her as she pushed against him with all her strength. He released her at last.

As she came down from that high, her chest rising and falling rapidly, she looked down to watch him pull his glistening fingers into his mouth. A small whimper escaped her parted lips. 

“Sweet little peach you are,” he murmured, kissing her thigh once more before coming to his feet. 

Arya laid there for a moment more, basking in the warmth that enveloped her before she caught sight of the very noticeable arousal still trapped within his trousers. Her muscles felt like ooze as she sat up, another shock of pleasure running through her as the bed pressed against her core. Sandor took a step closer, looking down at her with hooded eyes as his finger traced the tops of her breasts. Not breaking the gaze, she worked at the ties of his pants and pulled them down slowly, almost afraid of what she would see. 

Calling a cock beautiful was not something she would have ever considered, but even amongst the thick dark curls, Arya could safely say it was a sight to behold. If she were to wrap her hands around it, stacked from base to tip, there would still be more to see, and even then, a single hand would not be able to fully circle it, finger to finger. She bit her lip tentatively as her small hands ran over his thick, muscular legs before pausing at his pelvis. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she met his lustful gaze with her own.

“It won’t bite,” he teased.

“I know it won’t bite.”

“Did the ladies in Braavos teach you how to handle a cock?”

_Not one this size,_ she thought with trepidation as she wrapped her small hand around it. A long stroke from head to balls elicited a deep growl from him.

A tiny bead of moisture caught her eye, so she flicked out her tongue to taste his saltiness. Sandor flexed his hips eagerly as she ran her tongue along the head, pulling it into her mouth while both of her small hands worked it’s length.

Immediately his hands went to her hair, tangling in the softness as he groaned at the unimaginable warmth that surrounded him. He looked down to see part of his cock buried in her mouth and it took all he had not to just fuck her mouth and shoot his load down the back of her throat right then. The notion of doing just that didn’t help things though and he grunted as he pulled back reluctantly.

“That sweet little mouth of yours is gonna do me in,” he complained, running his finger along her cheek as his glistening cock twitched just inches from her mouth. 

“Good.” 

Wet heat enveloped him again and his eyes rolled back as his hips rolled forward. He was going to turn into a damned green boy, spilling his seed with a few licks as though he’d never had a mouth around his cock before. _Not one as good as this and not in some time._

“You’re gonna get a mouthful,” he warned as his hands pressed against the back of her head.

Vibrations from her hummed approval were enough to send him over the edge. His hips thrusted involuntarily into her mouth, a vision that made him groan as he sent stream after stream of hot seed down her throat. And damn if he wasn’t impressed she swallowed it all with nary a grunt of discomfort. With a shuddering sigh, he looked down to see her pulling back, wiping a white wetness from the corner of her mouth as she looked up at him, doe-eyed. 

“Seven hells. Having a delicious mouth is not something those whores could have taught you. Don’t usually happen that quick,” he sighed, still throbbing as he looked over her naked body. 

“Just means you’ll last longer for the second round.”

Sandor gave her an shameless grin before pushing her back on the bed with a growl. She smiled into his mouth as he claimed it, meeting her tongue in the middle. He could taste himself in her mouth, and she could taste herself in his. 

Arya held him close, her arms tight around his neck. It was an odd feeling, knowing she didn’t need the protection and safety of anyone else, yet not wanting to be anywhere other than the strong cocoon of warmth and love his arms had unexpectedly offered.

“I’m glad I didn’t kill you,” she said against the scar on his shoulder. Light kisses dotted along it as he squeezed her tight. 

“Aye, me too.”

He rested his forehead against hers, looking down at her flushed cheeks, swollen pink lips and winter-grey eyes that always sent a shiver down his spine. There was a softness—a trust—in her look, one she did not give freely. It felt like he was waking up from some long nightmare when she looked at him that way, offering solace and understanding. For she did understand him, better than most, and at times it felt like they were the same person, one soul split into two, waiting to be rejoined. 

Her legs wrapped around him, ready to make that a reality. Sandor shifted himself between her, looking down the length of her body, past the scars and bruises, to the closeness of their two bodies. He pressed his cock against her slick cunt, moving it up and down her length as they both gasped at the contact.

With slow, deliberate movement, he pushed the plump head of his manhood inside her. The wet heat made him see stars and it took everything he had to not press further in. Gods she was tight.

Arya tensed inadvertently at the intrusion. More than anything, the pain she felt was from the stretching, the unbelievable fullness that felt like it was ripping her in two and he was barely within her.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, stopping. 

“A bit of pain now for a lot of pleasure later,” she managed through clenched teeth, smirking to hide her discomfort. He began to pull out. “No, really. Keep going.”

“Don’t you worry, sweetling.”

Sandor pulled almost completely out before slowly going back into the tight heat of her core. Her nails dug into the skin of his shoulder as she whimpered into his chest. A bit further in this time, and then out once more. Hell, it was almost painful for him too.

After a few more gentle thrusts, he groaned at the feel of his balls against her arse as he bottomed out at last. They laid there for a moment, heavy, hot breaths mingling between their bodies.

“Seven save me,” she muttered into the crook of his neck. Sandor chuckled. 

“The gods might have slightly higher priorities than your cunt,” he nipped at her ear in jest. “You okay?”

Arya nodded against his chest. Sandor pulled out slowly, savoring the tug on his cock before thrusting with a bit more vigor. She clutched at his back, surely leaving angry red marks. Again he pulled out and once more he thrusted, urged on by the soft grunts and gasps against his skin.  

They found a languid rhythm and the world seemed to disappear around them. Only the joining of their two bodies, a physical representation of their souls, mattered as sighs and grunts spoke of their passion.

“I want to see you,” Sandor mumbled as he pulled back after a time. 

“I don’t know how much more there is to see,” she panted, looking up at him. 

A bark of a laugh was his only response before he rolled over with her, switching their places in a rather smooth motion. Arya sat atop him, her cheeks flush and her body covered in a light sheen of sweat. A playfulness had possessed her and she flashed him a heart-stopping smile as her small hands splayed out on his chest. 

Biting her lip in concentration, she positioned herself and slowly lowered onto his cock. Sandor groaned as he watched it disappear within her, back into that tight, wet heat. Tawny hair pasted to her damp forehead as she held onto his chest as best she could. He brushed it out of her eyes.

She worked to learn the moves of this dance as he watched with rapt desire. One of her hands slid between their bodies and she let out a quiet moan as she began touching herself, an image forever burned into his memory. 

Arya leaned forward against him, her hand on the bed beside him while the other worked between her legs. Sandor took the opportunity to shift from slow, lazy movements to quicker, passionate thrusts as he dug his heels into the mattress for leverage. His hands dug into her hips as they moved, her lithe body somehow as tense as a bowstring and as fluid as the vast ocean beyond the ship’s walls as she neared her peak once more. He watched her small tits bob vigorously to his pounding, as she grunted and gasped with each thrust. 

“Unnnff… Sandor…” Breathy groans accompanied his movements as he held her tightly. “More… faster…”

“You won’t walk for a week…”

“We’re on a boat…” she panted. “Where am I walking?” 

The words came choked as he grabbed her hips with bruising force and thrust with abandon. Arya pushed back into it, grinning impishly up at him as skin slapped against skin with a wet noise. With a growl he grabbed her face and crushed his lips to hers as she moaned into his mouth, coming undone around him. Pulsing waves of pleasure erupted from her, clenching around his length as they moved together in wanton bliss.

Her little hands clutched at his chest as she buried her head in his neck. Sandor was surrounded by her, in every sense; her prisoner and she didn’t even know it. He tasted only her, heard only her, saw only her. His nose buried into the hair behind her ear; she was all he could smell. And more than anything, he felt her, tight and hot, slick and perfect as he dug his fingers into her, surely leaving bruises. 

With a fervent growl, he bit her shoulder as he pulled out, spilling hot seed between their bodies. All he wanted in the world was to still be inside her but the one clear thought he managed to have was not to have another life to worry about with the impending doom. 

Sandor held her tight, his fingers flexing in the soft flesh of her rear as she pressed kisses to his collarbone. The room slowly came back to them: the quiet creak of the ship, the gentle sway over the water, the cool air that stung damp flesh. Arya shivered atop him and he pulled a fur over them as he kissed her forehead. Both knew they should clean up, perhaps check on Jon or find Daenerys, but all either of them wanted was to stay beneath that warm fur, lost in each other’s arms, for a moment more.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Cover art based on my original drawing [which can be found here](https://wtflommy.deviantart.com/).  
> 


End file.
